•     l»     -    >; 


dubi 


am 


LI  BRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Received 
y4  ccessions  No. 


Shelf  No. 


R: 


'//,•//  //,  ,v.w//; 


/ 

/ 


PROCEEDINGS 


AT 


THE  INSTALLATION 


OF 


SETH  LOW,  LLD. 


AS 


PRESIDENT  OF  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE 
IN  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

FEBRUARY    3,    1890 


UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 

PRINTED  FOR  THE  COLLEGE 
APRIL,  1890 


INSTALLATION 

OF 

PRESIDENT    LOW 


The  Honorable  SETH  Low,  of  the  Class  of  1870,  was 
elected  President  of  Columbia  College  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  at  the  meeting  of  the  Trustees  of  the  College  held  on 
Monday,  the  seventh  day  of  October,  1889.  He  accepted 
the  office  in  the  following  letter : 

201  COLUMBIA  HEIGHTS,  BROOKLYN, 
Oct.  28,  1889. 

Gerard  Beekman,  Esq.,  Clerk  of  the    Trustees  of  Columbia 

College  : 

SIR: — I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  your 
official  communication  informing  me  of  my  election  by  the 
Trustees  as  President  of  Columbia  College.  The  honor  is 
at  the  same  time  the  summons  to  a  duty  which  I  may  not 
decline.  I  accept,  therefore,  the  position  to  which  I  have 
been  chosen,  with  grateful  thanks  to  my  colleagues  for  this 
culminating  mark  of  their  confidence  and  good-will,  and 
with  the  assurance  that  I  will  do  every  thing  in  my  power 
to  justify  their  judgment. 

If  it  is  acceptable  to  the  Trustees,  I  should  propose  to 
assume  the  duties  of  the  President  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  term,  or  about  the  first  week  in  February.  I  am 
permitted  to  say,  by  the  courtesy  of  my  old  and  valued 
friend,  the  Acting  President,  Dr.  Drisler,  that  this  time 
commends  itself  to  him,  also,  as  the  best  time  for  the  new 
presidency  to  begin. 

With  great  respect,  I  am, 

Yours  faithfully, 

SETH  Low. 


4  COLUMBIA    COLLEGE. 

A  committee  of  Trustees,  with  the  Acting  President  of 
the  College,  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  the  College,  and 
the  President  of  the  Association  of  the  Alumni,  made  the 
preliminary  arrangements,  and,  on  its  report  and  recommen- 
dation, the  Trustees,  at  their  stated  meeting  of  December 
2,  1889,  authorized  the  leasing  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House  for  the  installation  ceremonies,  directed  "  that  all 
the  Faculties  of  the  College  be  invited  to  unite  in  choosing 
a  representative  to  make  an  address  on  their  behalf  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Installation  of  the  President-elect  "  ;  "  that 
the  Governing  Bodies  of  the  Alumni  Associations  of  the 
College  be  invited  to  unite  in  choosing  a  representative  to 
make  an  address  on  behalf  of  all  the  Alumni  on  that  occa- 
sion ";  "that  the  members  of  the  several  Faculties,  and 
other  officers  of  instruction,  of  the  College,  be  requested  " 
to  appear,  at  the  Installation,  in  academic  costume  of  cap 
and  gown. 

The  chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  the  Hon.  Hamil- 
ton Fish,  LL.D.,  having  been,  at  his  own  request,  excused, 
by  reason  of  uncertain  health,  from  making  the  address  of 
Installation,  the  Reverend  Morgan  Dix,  S.T.D.,  D.C.L., 
was  appointed  to  make  the  address  on  behalf  of  the 
Trustees. 

At  the  same  meeting  of  December  2,  the  Trustees 
appointed  a  committee  consisting  of : 

The  Hon.  Hamilton  Fish,  LL.D.,  chairman, 

Joseph  W.  Harper, 

George  L.  Peabody,  M.D., 

William  C.  Schermerhorn, 

John  Crosby  Brown, 

Prof.  Henry  Drisler,  LL.D.,  Acting  President  of  the 
College, 

Prof.  J.  H.  Van  Amringe,  Ph.D.,  Secretary  of  the  Board 
of  the  College, 

"  to  prepare  and  take  charge  of  the  proceedings  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  Installation  of  the  President-elect." 

The  committee  appointed  Professor  Van  Amringe  its 
secretary,  and  charged  him  with  the  carrying  out  of  such 
arrangements  as  might  be  made. 


INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW.  5 

Early  official  notice  was  received  that  all  the  Faculties  of 
the  College  had  united  in  choosing  Henry  Drisler,  LL.D., 
Senior  Professor  and  Acting  President,  to  make  the  address 
on  their  behalf  on  the  occasion  of  the  Installation  of  the 
President-elect,  and  that  the  Governing  Bodies  of  the 
Alumni  Associations  had  united  in  choosing  Frederic  R. 
Coudert,  LL.D.,  of  the  class  of  1850,  President  of  the 
Alumni  Association  of  the  College,  to  make  the  address  on 
behalf  of  all  the  alumni. 

In  the  name  of  the  Trustees,  the  committee  issued 
invitations  to  be  present  at  the  installation  proceedings  to : 

The  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  members  of 
his  Cabinet ; 

The  Chief-Justice  and  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States ; 

The  Senators  of  the  United  States  from  the  State  of  New 
York; 

The  Superintendent  of  the  United  States  Coast  and 
Geodetic  Survey  ; 

The  Chief  Signal  Officer  of  the  United  States  ; 

The  Superintendent  of  the  United  States  Naval  Ob- 
servatory ; 

The  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  ; 

The  following  officers  of  the  State  of  New  York,  viz. :  the 
Governor,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  the  Secretary  of  State, 
the  Treasurer,  the  Comptroller,  the  Attorney-General,  the 
Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  the  Adjutant-General, 
the  State  Engineer,  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York ; 

The  following  officers  of  the  city  of  New  York,  viz. : 
the  Mayor,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  the 
Comptroller,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Education ; 

The  following  officers  of  the  city  of  Brooklyn,  viz. :  the 
Mayor,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  the  Comp- 
troller, the  City  Auditor ; 

The  President,  and  a  delegation  from  the  Faculty,  of 
each  of  seventy  American  Colleges  and  Universities  ; 

A  delegation  from  the  Faculty  of  each  of  eight  Theo- 
logical Seminaries ; 


0  COLUMBIA    COLLEGE. 

The  Professors  constituting  the  Faculty  of  the  General 
Theological  Seminary  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  city  of  New  York  ; 

The  Professors  constituting  the  Faculty  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York  ; 

The  members  of  the  Vestry  of  Trinity  Parish  in  the  city 
of  New  York ; 

A  delegation  from  the  governing  bodies  of  each  of  vari- 
ous institutions  and  of  scientific  and  learned  bodies  to  the 
number  of  twenty-five ; 

The  Trustees,  and  the  Professors  constituting  the  Faculty, 
of  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  Medical  Depart- 
ment of  Columbia  College ; 

The  officers  and  the  members  of  the  Standing  Committee 
of  the  Association  of  the  Alumni  of  Columbia  College ; 

The  officers  and  the  managers  of  the  Alumni  Association 
of  the  School  of  Mines  of  Columbia  College ; 

The  Trustees  of  Barnard  College,  New  York  City ; 

The  Trustees,  and  the  Professors  constituting  the  Faculty, 
of  the  Collegiate  and  Polytechnic  Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. ; 

The  Trustees  of  Packer  Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  ; 

Four  hundred  others,  gentlemen  of  consideration  and 
distinction  in  the  various  walks  of  life. 

The  Alumni  of  the  College,  in  all  its  departments,  were 
notified  through  the  public  press,  and  to  every  alumnus, 
whose  address  was  known,  was  sent  a  copy  of  the  following 
circular : 

COLUMBIA  COLLEGE, 

New  York,  January,  1890. 

The  Installation  of  Seth  Low,  LL.D.,  as  President  of 
Columbia  College,  will  take  place  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House,  Broadway  and  3Qth  Street,  on  Monday  morning, 
February  the  third,  at  half-past  ten  o'clock. 

The  Parquette  has  been  reserved  for  the  students  of  the 
College,  and  the  boxes  for  officers  and  invited  guests. 

The  Dress  Circle,  the  Balcony,  and  the  Family  Circle, 


IN  STALL  A  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW.  J 

having  together  a  seating  capacity  of  about  1,800,  are  for 
the  use  of  alumni  generally  and  members  of  their  families. 
Tickets  of  admission  may  be  had  on  application,  in  writing, 
to  the 

SECRETARY  OF  THE 

BOARD  OF  THE  COLLEGE. 

The  favorable  responses  to  the  invitations  were  very 
numerous,  and,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Installation,  the 
Metropolitan  Opera  House  was  well  filled  with  a  brilliant 
and  representative  assemblage. 

The  Grand  Marshal  of  the  day  was  George  G.  De  Witt, 
Jr.,  of  the  Class  of  1867,  who  was  assisted  in  his  duties  by 

MARSHALS. 

William  G.  Lathrop,  Jr.,  Wm.  de  L.  Benedict, 

George  G.  Kip,  John  B.  Pine, 

Abraham  Van  Santvoord,  Edward  E.  Sage, 

John  V.  Wheeler,  James  W.  Pry  or, 

Nicholas  Fish,  Frederick  D.  Phillips, 

Fredk.  de  Peyster  Foster,  Wm.  Fellowes  Morgan, 

Henry  D.  Babcock,  Alvan  H.  Van  Sinderen, 

William  A.  Duer,  William  S.  Sloan, 

Alexander  B.  Simonds,  M.  Orme  Wilson, 

Gilbert  M.  Spier,  Jr.,  George  A  Suter, 

John  T.  Williams,  Lincoln  Cromwell, 

Robert  C.  Cornell,  Edward  P.  Casey, 

Edward  S.  Rapallo,  Thatcher  T.  P.  Luquer, 

and  by  the  following  undergraduates,  representatives  of 
every  class  of  students  of  each  of  the  Schools  upon  the 
College  Block,  as 

AIDS. 

Marston  T.  Bogert,  Reginald  H.  Arnold, 

Thomas  M.  St.  John,  Charles  C.  Kalbfleisch, 

Charles  L.  Livingston,  Rolla  B.  Watson, 

T.  M.  Randolph  Meikleham,  John  F.  Putnam, 

John  A.  Dempsey,  George  C.  Southard, 


8  COLUMBIA    COLLEGE. 

Lindley  M.  Keasbey,  Arthur  T.  Hewlett, 

George  H.  Walker,  Edward  L.  Dufourcq, 

Clarence  C.  Ferris,  Harvey  R.  Kingsley, 

Robert  A.  Ashworth,  Reginald  G.  Foster, 

Frederick  E.  Pierce,  William  R.  Brinckerhoff, 

William  A.  Taintor. 

A  delegation  from  the  students  of  the  College  of  Physi- 
cians and  Surgeons,  Medical  Department  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege, was  present  by  invitation,  under  the  marshalship  of 
Herman  C.  Riggs. 

The  guests  proceeded  from  the  Assembly  Room  to  the 
stage  in  the  following 

ORDER   OF    PROCESSION. 

1.  Trustees  of  Columbia  College. 

2.  Regents  of  the  University  of   the  State  of  New 

York. 

3.  Representatives  of  the  United  States,  State,  and 

City  Governments,   and   officers  of  the  Army 
and  Navy. 

4.  Chaplain  of  Columbia  College. 

5.  Professors  of  Columbia  College. 

6.  Instructors,    Tutors,    and    Fellows    of    Columbia 

College. 

7.  Presidents  of  other  Universities  and  Colleges. 

8.  Delegates  from  other  Universities  and  Colleges. 

9.  The  Reverend  Clergy. 
10.     Other  invited  guests. 

TRUSTEES   OF  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Board  and  the  President-elect, 
William  C.  Schermerhorn,         Morgan  Dix,  S.T.D.,  D.C.L., 
Samuel  Blatchford,  LL.D.,        Stephen  P.  Nash,  LL.D., 
Joseph  W.  Harper,  Charles  A.  Silliman, 

Frederick  A.  Schermerhorn,     Gerard  Beekman, 
Abram  N.  Littlejohn,  D.D.,       Edward  Mitchell, 


INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW.  9 

W.  Bayard  Cutting,  Talbot  W.  Chambers,  S.T.D., 

George  L.  Rives,  Lenox  Smith, 

George  L.  Peabody,  M.D.,        John  Crosby  Brown, 
Charles  M.  DaCosta,  Henry     C.      Potter,      D.D., 

William  H.  Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.  (Cantab.), 

Marvin  R.  Vincent,  S.T.D. 

Heading  the  body  of  Professors  of  the  College  was  Senior 
Professor  Drisler,  orator  of  the  day  on  behalf  of  all  the  fac- 
ulties, accompanied  by  Frederic  R.  Coudert,  Esq.,  LL.D., 
orator  on  behalf  of  all  the  alumni.  The  remaining  Profes- 
sors, the  Instructors,  Tutors,  and  Fellows  of  the  College 
followed  in  order  of  their  appointment : 

PROFESSORS. 

* 
William     G.     Peck,     Ph.D.,     Theodore       W.        Dwight, 

LL.D.,  LL.D., 

John       Ordronaux,      M.D.,     J.    Howard    Van    Amringe, 

LL.D.,  A.M.,  Ph.D., 

Ogden  N.  Rood,  A.M.,  Thomas      Egleston,      E.M., 

Ph.D.,  LL.D., 
Charles  F.  Chandler,  Ph.D.,     John    S.    Newberry,    M.D., 

M.D.,  LL.D.,  LL.D., 

George  Chase,  LL.B.,  John     W.     Burgess,     A.M., 

Ph.D.,  LL.D., 
William      P.      Trowbridge,      Henry     S.    Munroe,     E.M,, 

Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Ph.D. 

Richmond  M.  Smith,  A.M.,      Charles Sprague  Smith,  A.M., 
Augustus  C.  Merriam,  A.M.,     Thomas     R.     Price,     A.M., 

Ph.D.,  LL.D., 

Frederick  R.  Hutton,  E.M.,     Hjalmar  H.  Boyesen,  Ph.D., 

Ph.D., 

John  K.  Rees,  A.M.,  E.M.,       Benjamin  F.  Lee,  LL.D., 
Munroe        Smith,        A.M.,     John  D.  Quackenbos,  A.M., 

J.U.D.,  M.D., 

Pierre  de  P.  Ricketts,  E.M.,     Elwyn  Waller,  A.M.,   E.M., 

Ph.D.,  Ph.D., 


IO  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 

Jasper  T.  Goodwin,  A.M.,  Frank    J.   Goodnow,    A.M., 

LL.B.,  LL.B., 

Richard      J.     H.     Gottheil,  Edwin     R.     A.      Seligman, 

Ph.D.,  LL.B.,  Ph.D., 

Harry  T.  Peck,  A.M.,  Ph.D.,  Nicholas      Murray      Butler, 

L.H.D.,  Ph.D., 

William  H.  Carpenter,  Ph.D.,  Alfred  D.  F.  Hamlin,  A.M. 


INSTRUCTORS. 
TUTORS. 
FELLOWS. 

The  ceremonies  attending  the  Installation  proceeded  in 
accordance  with  the  following 

ORDER  OF  EXERCISES. 

Overture  : 

Introduction  to  Act  III  Meistersinger  (Wagner) 
ORCHESTRA. 
Processional, 
ORCHESTRA. 


I.      Prayer,        By  the  Rev.  CORNELIUS  R.  DUFFIE,  S.T.D., 

Chaplain  of  the  College. 
II.     Address  on  behalf  of  the  Trustees, 

By  the  Rev.  MORGAN  Dix.  S.T.D.,  D.C.L. 

III.  The  Installation, 

By  the  Hon.  HAMILTON  FISH,  LL.D., 
Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 

IV.  Reply  by  the  President. 

Dance  of  the  Blessed  Spirits  from  Orpheus  (Gluck) 
ORCHESTRA. 


INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW.  II 

V.     Address  on  behalf  of  all  the  Faculties, 

By  Professor  HENRY  DRISLER,  LL.D. 

VI.     Address  on  behalf  of  all  the  Alumni, 

By  FREDERIC  R.  COUDERT,  LL.D.,  of  the  Class  of  1850. 
VII.     Reply  by  the  President. 


Air  on  the  G  String  (Bach) 
ORCHESTRA. 

VIII.      President's  Inaugural  Address. 

IX.     Benediction, 

By  the  Right  Rev.  HENRY  C.  POTTER,  D.D., 
LL.D.  (Cantab.)  Bishop  of  New  York. 


March  from  The  Ruins  of  Athens  (Beethoven) 
ORCHESTRA. 


This  narrative  may  appropriately  conclude  with  an  edito- 
rial article  from  the  accomplished  pen  of  GEORGE  WILLIAM 
CURTIS,  which  appeared  in  Harper  s  Weekly  of  February  15, 
1890,  entitled 

"A  GREAT  DAY  FOR  COLUMBIA." 

The  Installation  of  the  new  President  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege in  the  city  of  New  York  was  an  event  of  very  great 
interest  and  significance.  A  man  of  scholarly  accomplish- 
ment and  training,  of  great  experience  in  public  and  com- 
mercial affairs,  of  a  singularly  sound  and  wise  judgment,  of 
tried  administrative  skill,  and  of  tranquil  independence  and 
courage,  blended  with  admirable  moderation,  is  called,  in 
the  full  vigor  of  his  manhood  and  before  middle  age,  to  the 
conduct  of  a  College  which  had  a  close  and  intimate  rela- 


12  COLUMBIA    COLLEGE. 

tion  to  the  local  and  national  life  of  the  last  century,  but 
whose  influence  upon  the  modern  life  of  New  York  and  the 
country  has  been  less  marked.  The  proceedings  in  the 
Metropolitan  Opera  House,  which  offers  a  fitting  and  stately 
scene  for  so  dignified  and  impressive  a  ceremonial,  were 
worthy  of  the  great  occasion.  The  vast  and  sympathetic 
audience  and  the  distinguished  assembly  of  guests,  which 
was  probably  as  notable  a  gathering  of  men  most  eminent 
in  institutions  of  learning  as  has  been  seen  in  the  country, 
except  perhaps  at  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary 
of  the  foundation  of  Harvard,  listened  with  unflagging 
sympathy  to  a  series  of  admirable  addresses,  in  which  not 
only  the  highest  proprieties  of  the  occasion  were  observed, 
but  in  the  more  important  of  which  the  tone  was  signifi- 
cant and  unmistakable. 

The  chief  address  was  the  inaugural  oration  of  President 
Low.  Like  all  his  addresses  of  the  day,  it  was  spoken 
without  notes,  and  with  the  easy  and  simple  self-possession 
of  a  master  of  the  occasion  and  the  situation.  The  address 
itself  was  briefly  historical,  and  then  passed  naturally  to  a 
statement  of  the  scope  of  a  great  university,  and  to  a  strong 
plea  from  one  of  the  best  representatives  of  the  character- 
istic activities  of  New  York  for  the  generous  support  by 
New  York  of  an  institution  which,  with  so  fine  an  historic 
tradition,  represents  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  forces 
which  are  the  enduring  foundations  of  human  society.  It 
was  a  strong,  wise,  dignified,  and  eloquent  appeal,  and  it 
was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  with  the  orator  at  the  head 
of  the  College,  now  peculiarly  prosperous  if  compared  with 
previous  years,  and  with  public  sentiment  more  friendly 
than  since  its  earlier  day,  the  probability  of  a  generous  and 
effective  local  public  sympathy  would  soon  be  apparent. 

In  the  evening,  at  the  brilliant  dinner  of  the  Alumni, 
President  Low  made  some  very  interesting  and  detailed 
statements  in  regard  to  the  pecuniary  condition  and  pros- 
pects of  the  College,  and  added  the  emphatic  remark  that 
while  its  resources  seemed  large,  the  expenses  of  such  an 
institution,  if  adequately  maintained  and  reasonably  en- 


INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW.  13 

larged,  would  be  very  much  greater  than  any  income  now 
possible.  President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  in  a  frank  and 
friendly  speech,  which  fitly  ended  the  proceedings  of  a 
memorable  college  day  with  the  counsel  and  benediction 
of  our  oldest  college,  mentioned  some  facts  in  regard  to 
Harvard  similar  to  those  respecting  Columbia  mentioned  by 
President  Low.  Upon  this  subject  the  moral  of  the  Har- 
vard President's  speech  was  that  Columbia  required  a  more 
liberal  support  from  New  York  than  it  had  received,  and 
that  with  such  support  it  would  become  an  institution  in 
extent  and  variety,  no  less  than  in  quality,  worthy  of  the 
chief  city  of  the  country.  His  concluding  remarks  upon 
the  true  range  and  scope  of  such  an  institution  were  in  a 
lofty  strain,  which  was  as  delightful  as  it  was  natural,  be- 
cause it  was  the  true  voice  of  Harvard.  It  was  the  close  of 
a  day  of  renewed  hope  and  faith  and  energy,  which  had 
recalled  Jay  and  Hamilton,  Livingston  and  Morris,  Clinton 
and  Verplanck,  to  illustrate  the  early  leadership  of  Colum- 
bia, and  to  stimulate  the  just  pride  of  a  great  city  in  its 
oldest  school.  The  chief  colleges  which  were  not  too  dis- 
tant had  come  to  congratulate  their  comrade.  A  host  of 
proud  Alumni  were  gathered  to  cheer  the  happy  event. 
"  It  is  a  great  day  for  Columbia,"  said  Mr.  Coudert,  the 
President  of  the  Alumni,  as  with  quaint  humor  and  felici- 
tous eloquence  he  presided  at  the  dinner  ;  "  but  it  is  a 
greater  day  for  New  York." 


ADDRESSES. 


ADDRESS   ON   BEHALF  OF  THE  TRUSTEES 

BY 

THE  REV.  MORGAN  DIX,  S.T.D.,  D.C.L. 

The  Trustees  of  Columbia  College  have  requested 
me  to  take  the  place  of  the  honorable  and  eminent 
Chairman  of  their  Board,  whose  uncertain  state  of 
health  constrains  him,  to  the  regret  of  all  present,  to 
decline  the  exercise  of  a  prerogative  of  his  office  ; 
and  have  directed  me  to  address  you  in  their  name, 
on  this  auspicious  occasion  of  your  inauguration  as 
our  President.  The  official  act  of  the  day  is  per- 
formed without  misgiving.  If  you  were  now  coming 
to  us,  a  stranger  to  the  place,  and  not  yet  intimately 
known  to  our  corporate  body,  we  might  perhaps  have 
paused  for  a  moment  to  scan  the  future,  and  endeavor 
to  forecast  your  course.  But  it  is  not  so  ;  you  are  no 
stranger,  but  one  of  our  own  official  household.  A 
distinguished  alumnus  of  the  College,  and  noted, 
from  the  outset,  for  your  devotion  to  your  Alma 
Mater,  you  were  called,  at  the  proper  time,  to  a  place 
in  the  governing  body,  and  there  have  we  sat  together 
as  colleagues.  Your  mind  is  known  to  us  ;  we  are 
familiar  with  your  lines  of  thought,  your  mode  of 
handling  practical  subjects,  your  views  on  the  ques- 

17 


1 8  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

tions  of  policy,  and  your  patience  and  industry  in 
affairs  of  administration.  With  the  advantage  of 
that  intimate  acquaintance,  we  took  a  step  which 
attested  our  confidence  in  your  mental  qualities,  your 
intellectual  ability,  your  moral  and  religious  charac- 
ter, and  your  personal  honor,  and,  by  our  vote, 
entrusted  the  interests  of  this  venerable  institution  to 
your  care.  That  act,  itself  an  evidence  of  the  esteem 
in  which  you  are  held,  dispenses  with  the  customary 
use  of  formal  congratulations.  Indeed,  the  occasion 
is  not  one  for  complimentary  speech  ;  a  serious  pur- 
pose moves  and  inspires  the  actors  in  this  scene. 
Deeply  sensible  of  their  responsibility  for  the  future 
welfare  of  this  ancient  seat  of  learning,  the  Trustees 
have  selected  as  its  President  one  who  has  given  full 
proof  of  wisdom  and  earnest  intention,  and  is  consid- 
ered to  be  eminently  qualified  to  bear  the  weighty 
burden  laid  on  him  to-day. 

It  is  an  instinct  with  men,  on  such  occasions  as  this, 
to  cast  a  retrospective  glance  at  the  past.  You,  sir, 
are  the  eleventh  in  the  list  of  the  Presidents  of  Co- 
lumbia College.  To  recount  the  names  of  all  your 
distinguished  predecessors  is  unnecessary,  but  I  crave 
permission  to  allude  to  the  two  next  before  you  in 
order.  On  the  evening  of  Monday,  November  7, 
1849,  m  tne  College  Chapel,  on  our  old  site  between 
Park  Place  and  Church  Street,  Mr.  Charles  King  was 
formally  installed.  The  official  acts  were  performed 
on  that  occasion  by  General  Laight,  Chairman  of  the 
Board  ;  the  address  of  welcome  was  delivered  by  that 
reverend  and  accomplished  gentleman,  Professor  John 
McVickar.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  accession 
of  Mr.  King  was  hailed  on  the  score  of  his  practical 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  TRUSTEES.  IQ 

familiarity  with  public  affairs,  in  the  belief  that  his 
administration  would  open  a  new  sphere  of  popular 
influence,  and  strengthen  the  bonds  of  sympathy 
between  our  College  and  this  great  commercial 
metropolis.  It  may  also  be  observed  that  in  the 
addresses  delivered  on  the  occasion  there  is  an 
echo  faint,  yet  distinct,  of  the  din  of  arms.  On  the 
right  of  the  President-elect  at  the  inauguration  cere- 
monies, sat  one  of  the  most  illustrious  soldiers  of  his 
day,  then  decorated  with  laurels  freshly  gathered 
from  the  field  of  a  successful  foreign  war  ;  for  the 
treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico  had  been  made  February 
2,  1848.  The  era  was  one  of  transition  in  our  College 
history ;  preparations  were  already  on  foot  for  a 
change  of  site,  and  an  expansion  of  our  educational 
system.  Fifteen  years  passed  by,  and  then,  on  Mon- 
day, October  3,  1864,  on  the  present  site  of  the  Col- 
lege, and  in  the  Chapel,  the  inauguration  of  that 
illustrious  man  took  place  whom  it  is  the  first  of  your 
•distinctions  to  succeed. 

The  address  on  that  occasion  was  made  by  him 
who,  for  thirty  years,  has  admirably  filled  the  office 
of  Chairman  of  this  Board,  and  still  adorns  our  Coun- 
cil-room by  his  presence  and  illuminates  our  delibera- 
tions by  his  learning  and  wisdom,  a  man  to  whom 
the  whole  community  do  honor,  whose  fame  is  the 
possession  of  his  country.  Then,  as  at  the  previous 
inauguration,  was  heard  the  sound  of  conflict,  and 
more  distinctly  than  before  ;  for  we  were  in  the  third 
year  of  a  terrible  war,  which  tried  men's  souls,  and 
ended  in  the  overthrow  of  every  power  opposed  to 
the  cause  of  the  nation.  To-day,  in  happy  contrast, 
our  ears  attend  no  unwelcome  or  intrusive  cry  ;  the 


20  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

day  of  your  inauguration  is  a  day  of  peace  ;  favoring 
signs  now  bid  us  advance  without  fear,  while  learning 
unfolds  her  treasures,  and  science  displays  her  wonders, 
and  religion  invokes  a  benediction  from  on  high. 

We  have  no  word  of  counsel  to  offer  on  this  occa- 
sion. Yesterday  your  companions  in  office,  to-day 
the  supporters  of  your  administration,  it  suffices  that 
we  pledge  to  you  simply  and  frankly  our  cordial  sup- 
port. You  are  well  acquainted  with  the  traditions  of 
the  College.  You  recall  perhaps  the  words  spoken 
by  President  Barnard  twenty-six  years  ago  ;  words 
worthy  of  being  engraved  on  tablets,  and  set  up  at 
the  entering  in  of  our  gates.  "  I  trust,"  said  that 
great  man,  "  that  Columbia  College  may  continue  to 
be  what  she  has  ever  hitherto  been — a  nursery  of 
sound  learning  and  a  school  of  thorough  intellectual 
training.  I  trust  that  she  may  continue  to  foster,  no 
less  assiduously  than  heretofore,  the  love  of  that 
noble  literature  of  antiquity,  which  has  ever  been 
esteemed  the  indispensable  basis  of  finished  scholar- 
ship ;  and  that  she  may,  at  the  same  time,  open  wide 
the  way  to  those  rich  treasures  of  science  which  the 
tireless  spirit  of  modern  investigation  has  wrung  from 
nature  by  the  direct  interrogation  of  the  glorious 
works  of  God.  I  trust  that,  while  firmly  holding  fast 
that  which  is  good  of  the  accumulated  learning  of  the 
past,  she  may  show  herself  equally  alive  to  the  splen- 
dor of  the  intellectual  triumphs  which  distinguish  and 
illustrate  the  present ;  and  may  even  take  rank  as  a 
positive  participant  in  those  grand  movements  of 
progress  by  which  the  boundaries  of  human  knowl- 
edge are  extended,  and  the  human  race  itself  lifted  to 
a  higher  level  in  the  scale  of  being." 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  TRUSTEES.  21 

These  aspirations  are  ours  also  ;  we  believe  them 
to  be  your  own.  We  desire  to  see  the  honor  of  Co- 
lumbia College  maintained,  as  a  school  in  which  the 
entire  man  is  educated,  and  the  whole  nature  directed 
to  a  symmetrical  growth.  It  is  not  merely  the  num- 
ber of  students  that  constitutes  the  glory  of  a  seat  of 
learning,  but  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  work 
of  their  instruction  is  done.  It  is  not  the  popular 
voice  which  is  to  decide  the  form  or  limits  of  educa- 
tion ;  come  from  what  quarter  it  will,  dictation  to  the 
governing  body  of  a  university  is  an  assault  on  their 
rights,  and  an  effort  at  usurping  their  authority ;  for 
the  business  of  education  is  to  mould,  and  not  to  be 
moulded  by,  those  on  whom  it  operates.  You,  sir, 
will  look  not  to  what  may  be  impatiently  or  ignorantly 
demanded  of  us,  but  solely  to  what  ought  to  be,  for 
the  honor  of  the  College,  for  the  benefit  of  ingenuous 
youth,  and  for  the  greatest  good  to  the  people.  In 
your  efforts  that  way  you  may  count  on  us  to  uphold 
you  in  every  trial,  and  to  second  you  in  every  design 
for  the  advancement  of  the  age. 

Great  is  the  contrast  between  the  simple  scenes  of 
other  days  and  that  presented  in  this  vast  building, 
which  is  hardly  capacious  enough  to  contain  the 
sympathetic  spectators  of  this  imposing  ceremonial. 
You  stand  here  surrounded  by  an  admiring  and  en- 
thusiastic assemblage  ;  by  the  learned  in  every  liberal 
profession  ;  by  men  distinguished  for  ability  in  the 
community ;  by  the  fair,  who  regard  you  with  that 
kind  interest  which  is  ever  the  spur  and  stimulus  to 
honorable  ambition  ;  by  these  young  men  whom  we 
now  solemnly  confide  to  your  care.  You  enter  upon 
your  office  with  great  advantages :  in  the  prime  of 


22  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

manly  strength ;  conspicuous  in  the  community  for 
knowledge  of  the  world,  experience  in  affairs,  rever- 
ence for  sacred  things,  an  incorruptible  fidelity  to  the 
right,  an  honest  abhorrence  of  the  wrong  and  the  bad. 
What  may  not  be  hoped  from  a  Presidency  begun 
under  such  auspicious  omens,  and  supported  at  the 
start  by  such  a  host  of  consenting  and  appreciative 
adherents  as  this  which  now  surrounds  you  ?  The 
work,  from  this  day  onward,  must  dilate  and  grow. 
You  are  to  direct  that  growth.  May  you  now  go 
forth  in  the  strength  of  powers  higher  than  those  of 
this  mortal  sphere,  and  may  the  chapter  in  our  his- 
tory, to  be  penned  by  your  hand,  be  among  the 
brightest  and  best  in  our  annals  ! 


THE   INSTALLATION 

BY  THE  HON.  HAMILTON  FISH,  LL.D., 
Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 

Doctor  Low  : 

It  is  with  much  satisfaction  and  confidence,  that  I 
have  now  to  discharge  the  ministerial  and  ceremonial 
duty  which  falls  to  me,  on  this  occasion,  as  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Trustees  of  Columbia  College. 

I  am  to  deliver  to  you  a  copy  of  the  Charter  of 
the  College,  to  whose  head  you  have  been  chosen. 
It  defines  the  extent  and  the  limitations  of  the  powers 
of  the  Trustees,  as  well  as  of  the  President. 

Further — I  am,  by  authority,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
Trustees,  to  place  in  your  custody,  while  you  remain 
its  President,  these  keys  of  the  College,  in  testimony 
of  the  high  charge,  and  responsibility  placed  in  you, 
as  such  President,  and  of  your  duty  to  guard  and  pro- 
tect the  property,  and  the  interests  of  the  College,  and 
to  maintain  order  and  discipline  within  its  precincts. 

It  now  remains  only  for  me  to  congratulate  both 
you  and  the  College  on  your  election  to  the  Presi- 
dency, and,  in  the  name  of  the  Trustees,  to  present 
you  to  this  vast  assemblage  ;  to  our  distinguished 
Guests  and  Friends  present  and  honoring  this  occa- 
sion ;  to  our  Professors  and  other  Instructors  ;  to  our 
Students  of  both  sexes  ;  to  our  Alumni  ;  as  the  duly 
elected  and  installed  President  of  Columbia  College. 

23 


PRESIDENT  LOW'S    REPLY   TO   THE   ADDRESS 
ON   THE   PART  OF  THE  TRUSTEES. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Reverend  Sir,  and  Gentlemen  of  the 
Trustees  : 

Reverently,  as  one  who  recognizes  the  importance 
of  the  work,  I  accept  the  charge  you  have  committed 
to  my  care.  Enthusiastically,  as  one  who  believes  in 
the  greatness  of  its  possibilities,  I  give  myself  to  it. 
Loyally,  as  becomes  one  of  her  own  sons,  I  will  serve 
Alma  Mater  with  every  power  that  I  have.  It  is  to 
me  an  inspiring  thought  that  the  old  College  had  been 
doing  her  glorious  work  for  a  century  before  I  was 
born.  The  vision  of  the  centuries  to  come  to  be 
blessed  by  her  labors  will  never  be  absent  from  my 
mind.  This  vision  will  give  dignity  and  solemnity 
to  every  act.  It  is  as  though  in  the  life  of  the  College 
our  own  lives  were  to  be  prolonged  like  those  of  the 
patriarchs  of  old,  so  that  we  can  recognize  distinctly 
the  direct  bearing  of  that  which  we  do  to-day  upon 
conditions  that  are  to  exist  long  after  we  are  gone. 
You  have  spoken,  sir,  of  the  installation  of  my  two 
immediate  predecessors.  It  is  interesting  to  reflect 
that  the  terms  of  service  of  these  two  distinguished 
men  cover  a  period  longer  than  my  whole  life.  I  had 
not  yet  come  to  college  when  Dr.  Barnard  entered 
upon  his  illustrious  career  as  Columbia's  President. 
In  1864,  when  Dr.  Barnard  began  his  labors  here, 

24 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  REPLY  TO  THE  TRUSTEES.         2$ 

Columbia  College  was  but  the  skeleton  of  the  fair 
institution  which  to-day  is  committed  to  my  care. 
Since  the  world  began,  men  have  labored  and  others 
have  entered  into  the  fruit  of  their  labors.  I  gladly 
recognize  for  myself,  and  for  all  who  love  Columbia, 
the  invaluable  services  rendered  to  the  College  by  my 
great  predecessor.  He  came  to  a  college  having  an 
Undergraduate  Department  of  166  students,  having  a 
Law  School  of  169  students,  and  having  a  School  of 
Mines  in  embryo,  about  to  begin  its  work  in  the 
basement  of  the  old  college  building.  The  relation 
of  the  School  of  Medicine,  or  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons,  to  Columbia,  was  then,  as  now,  a 
singular  one.  It  is  by  law  the  medical  school  of 
Columbia  College,  and  its  degrees  bear  the  signature 
of  Columbia's  President,  but  it  has  its  own  Board  of 
Trustees,  and  provides  its  own  funds.  Dr.  Barnard 
lived  to  see  the  modest  institution  to  which  he  came 
in  1864,  transformed  into  the  Columbia  of  the  present 
time,  splendid  in  its  equipments,  buoyant  in  courage, 
and  full  of  anticipations  of  a  destiny  worthy  of  its 
location  in  the  great  American  metropolis.  The 
undergraduate  department  has  doubled  in  size  since 
1864.  It  has  more  than  doubled  the  facilities  which 
it  offers  to  those  who  come  to  it  as  students.  I 
scarcely  recognize  even  the  College  of  1870  in  the 
institution  which  I  visit  to-day.  Many  familiar  faces 
greet  me  still ;  men  whom  I  learned  to  honor  then, 
and  whose  friendship  and  confidence  I  cherish  now  as 
among  the  greatest  of  my  own  honors  ;  but  the 
buildings  in  which  they  teach,  and  the  facilities  at 
their  command  for  teaching,  are  improved  almost 
beyond  description.  The  requirements  for  admission 


26  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

have  been  raised,  the  course  has  been  enlarged,  and 
the  opportunities  for  varied  instruction  have  been 
greatly  increased.  The  Law  School  has  trebled  its 
numbers,  and,  at  the  same  time,  enlarged  its  course. 
The  able  and  distinguished  man  who  came  to  Colum- 
bia as  the  first  head  of  the  Law  School  is  at  its  head 
still,  and  gives  to  it  the  unique  reputation  among  the 
law  schools  of  the  land  of  his  own  eminent  and  illus- 
trious name.  Professor  Dwight  may  reflect,  with 
confidence,  that  the  influence  and  importance  of  the 
school,  to  which  he  has  given  so  many  years  of  his 
life,  will  be  enduring.  It  shall  not  last  so  long,  how- 
ever, that  what  it  owes  to  him  will  be  forgotten. 

The  School  of  Mines,  which  Dr.  Barnard  opened 
in  the  basement  of  the  old  building,  he  left  in  posses- 
sion of  the  largest  quarters  upon  the  College  block. 
The  historic  name,  the  School  of  Mines,  covers  its 
manifold  activity  still,  but  it  long  ago  became,  in 
fact,  a  school  of  applied  science.  Beside  fitting  men 
to  be  mining  engineers,  it  has  courses  in  civil  engi- 
neering, metallurgy,  geology,  analytical  and  applied 
chemistry,  architecture,  sanitary  engineering,  and 
electrical  engineering.  In  all  these  departments  it 
challenges  comparison  with  the  best  work  done  in 
the  country.  It  is  a  name  to  conjure  with  for  a  man 
who  holds  its  degree.  Beside  the  development  of 
these  existing  schools,  there  has  been  added  to  them 
the  School  of  Political  Science,  to  meet  the  well 
recognized  need  for  training  in  social  and  economic 
and  constitutional  questions.  I  was  pleased  to  be 
told,  the  other  day,  in  another  city,  by  a  man  well 
competent  to  judge,  that  there  was  no  place  in  the 
country  where  any  thing  like  so  thorough  an  educa- 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  REPLY  TO  THE  TRUSTEES.        2/ 

tion  in  these  subjects  could  be  had  as  in  Columbia's 
School  of  Political  Science.  Added  to  all  this  is  the 
marvellous  growth  and  the  complete  transformation 
of  the  Library.  The  Library,  which  was  in  my  day 
substantially  of  no  use  to  the  students  of  the  College, 
has  become  an  invaluable  instrument  both  to  the 
instructors  and  to  the  students,  and  also  to  the 
scholars  of  New  York.  A  Library  building  delight- 
ful in  all  its  arrangements  has  taken  the  place  of  the 
bare  and  unattractive  room.  The  number  of  volumes 
at  command  has  more  than  doubled  ;  the  quality  of 
current  additions  is  believed  to  be  exceptionally  high  ; 
the  policy  of  the  Library  has  been  completely  changed. 
There  is  no  library  in  the  city,  I  venture  to  think 
there  is  none  in  the  country,  where  the  student  is 
more  welcome,  where  the  facilities  granted  him  are 
so  great.  No  part  of  the  college  system  is  more 
liberally  supported  or  more  generously  dealt  with, 
for  it  is  recognized  to  be  a  laboratory  of  all  the 
departments  of  the  College.  Changes  such  as  these 
imply  three  things :  they  imply  an  increase  of 
resources,  wise  leadership,  and  generous  support  on 
the  part  of  the  Trustees.  Dr.  Barnard  once  told  me, 
while  I  was  still  in  College,  that  prior  to  1867  there 
had  not  been  a  year,  with  a  single  exception,  for 
many  years,  when  Columbia  had  not  spent  more  than 
its  income.  I  apprehend  that  such  a  statement  comes 
like  a  surprise  to  the  ears  of  New  York.  What  it 
cost  the  College,  the  efforts  it  was  obliged  to  make  to 
retain  the  property  from  which  it  now  receives  its 
endowments  and  to  meet  the  heavy  assessments  for 
improvements,  while  the  income  from  the  property 
was  based  upon  rentals  fixed  in  the  distant  past,  none 


T7FIVEE  ^TY 


28  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

but  the  Trustees  will  ever  know.  It  is  worth  while  to 
point  out  that  substantially  all  the  growth  which  I 
have  indicated  has  been  made  since  1867,  through 
the  falling  in  of  leases  that  matured  about  that  time. 
The  same  causes  have  led  to  similar  conditions  again, 
of  late  years,  and  the  College  is  only  now  once  more 
reaching  the  point  where  it  can  command  still  further 
growth.  It  is  barely  two  years  since  it  found  its 
way  out  of  embarrassments  of  the  most  serious  char- 
acter. In  this  interval  of  less  than  two  years  the  Col- 
lege has  already  established  a  course  of  electrical 
engineering,  has  erected  a  building  for  it,  and  is  now 
equipping  it,  and  has  added  a  third  year  to  the 
course  in  the  Law  School,  making  proper  provision 
for  the  increased  instruction.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that,  just  as  before,  the  College  will  expand  its  useful- 
ness as  rapidly  as  it  can  do  so  wisely  up  to  the  full 
limit  of  its  means.  As  to  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Bar- 
nard I  need  not  enlarge  further.  He  is  recognized 
by  all  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  profoundly 
learned  men  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  He 
brought  to  the  service  of  the  College  a  single  pur- 
pose and  a  devotion  that  was  complete.  To  the  day 
of  his  death  he  remained  one  of  the  most  progressive 
spirits  of  our  time.  With  this  learning,  this  devotion, 
this  progressiveness,  Dr.  Barnard  served  Columbia 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  His  achievements  are 
recorded  in  the  archives  of  the  College  and  in  the 
educational  history  of  the  country.  His  memory  is 
enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  love  Columbia 
both  far  and  near.  I  named  a  third  element  as  con- 
tributing to  the  progress  of  these  last  twenty-five 
years.  Without  the  support  of  the  Trustees  none  of 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  REPLY  TO    THE    TRUSTEES.       29 

these  improvements  could  have  been  made.  The 
president  of  a  college  may  plan  ever  so  wisely ;  he 
may  devote  himself  to  its  service  with  an  energy  and 
devotion  that  know  no  fatigue,  but  unless  the  trustees 
of  the  college  give  him  a  glad  and  hearty  support  his 
best  efforts  will  be  of  little  avail.  It  makes  no  small 
part  of  the  courage  which  has  led  me  to  undertake 
the  duties  to  which  you  have  called  me,  that  I  come 
to  this  position  as  one  of  your  own  body,  chosen,  as 
your  spokesman  has  said,  after  mature  considera- 
tion, with  a  full  knowledge  of  my  spirit  and  a  large 
acquaintance  with  my  views.  Such  an  one  may  rea- 
sonably expect  from  the  Trustees  the  heartiest  co- 
operation and  support.  Had  I  doubted  whether  I 
should  receive  these,  nothing  could  have  induced  me  to 
accept  the  obligations  of  this  day.  But  it  is  my  good- 
fortune  to  know  the  Trustees  as  well  as  they  know 
me,  and  as  a  fruit  of  this  knowledge  I  am  here.  I 
thank  you  for  the  confidence  expressed  in  me  in  your 
words.  I  thank  you  for  the  still  more  conspicuous 
evidence  of  confidence  involved  in  my  election  ;  I 
pledge  you  my  most  earnest  efforts  to  justify  that 
confidence  and  to  merit  your  support.  In  the  full 
assurance  that  we  are  animated  by  a  common  pur- 
pose to  maintain  inviolate  the  trust  that  has  come  to 
us  from  the  past,  by  a  common  desire  to  make  the 
College  serve  our  own  day  and  generation  to  the  full 
measure  of  our  opportunity,  by  a  common  hope  that 
we  may  plan  wisely  and  build  on  the  old  foundations 
strongly  for  those  who  are  to  come  after  us,  I  am 
ready  now  to  enter  upon  my  new  work. 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  ALL  THE  FACULTIES 

BY 

PROF.  HENRY  DRISLER,  LL.D. 

President  Low  : 

Chosen  by  the  united  Faculties  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege as  their  representative  on  this  most  interesting 
and  memorable  occasion,  I  greet  you  as  our  President 
with  most  hearty  words  of  welcome.  Among  the 
many  causes  of  our  congratulations  on  your  accession 
to  the  Presidency,  not  the  least  is  the  fact  that  the 
Trustees  of  the  College,  after  long  and  careful  con- 
sideration, found  no  one  so  worthy  of  the  high  and 
responsible  office  as  one  of  her  own  sons.  Forty 
years  have  passed  since  this  post  of  honor  has  been 
held  by  a  son  of  Alma  Mater.  This  is  not  said  in 
derogation  of  the  distinguished  and  excellent  men 
who  have  filled  this  position  ;  on  the  contrary,  we 
regard  their  learning,  their  zeal,  their  labors  for  the 
advancement  of  the  College,  with  respect  and  admi- 
ration. We  merely  point  to  the  fact  that  Columbia 
has  shown  in  past  years  her  great  liberality  and  free- 
dom from  all  narrow  exclusiveness.  The  Charter 
and  the  Statutes  devolve  upon  the  President  exten- 
sive powers  and  great  responsibility  ;  they  also  consti- 
tute the  Faculties  advisory  councils,  "  to  assist  the 
President  in  the  government  and  education  of  the 

30 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  FACULTIES,  31 

students  belonging  to  the  (said)  College."  To  us, 
therefore,  the  selection  of  a  (new)  President  must 
naturally  be  a  matter  of  serious  import.  Not  alone 
the  institutions  of  different  nations  have  methods  and 
usages  which  constitute,  as  it  were,  their  intellectual 
atmosphere,  but  in  the  same  nation  in  an  institution 
of  long  standing  its  traditions  become  crystallized, 
and  there  arises  an  unwritten  law  which  is  of  binding 
force.  Educational  institutions  are  conservative  in 
their  character;  and,  while  admitting  genuine  re- 
forms or  modifications,  require  that  those  reforms 
should  be  made  only  after  calm  and  careful  delibera- 
tion. A  stranger  to  our  traditions,  therefore,  must 
make  his  way  by  slow  degrees,  and  will  need  time 
to  accommodate  himself  to  new  conditions  and  secure 
the  confidence  of  new  counsellors.  In  the  present 
case  no  such  reserve,  no  such  process,  is  necessary. 
To  you,  Mr.  President,  a  loyal  son  of  Alma  Mater, 
trained  under  her  teaching,  imbibing  her  traditions, 
accepting  the  foundation  principles  of  her  existence, 
as  expressed  in  her  Charter,  "  for  the  instruction  of 
youth  in  the  learned  languages  and  the  liberal  arts 
and  sciences,"  we  can,  and  we  do,  unhesitatingly 
pledge  our  implicit  confidence  and  our  loyal  sup- 
port. Your  entrance  upon  the  administration  of  her 
affairs  at  this  most  important  crisis  in  the  develop- 
ment of  our  College  system  seems  but  the  culmina- 
tion of  a  long  but  unconscious  preparation.  Strong 
attachment  to  the  studies  of  your  youth,  not  laid  aside 
in  maturer  years,  but  cherished  amid  the  pressing 
cares  of  an  active  live,  the  business  habits  formed  in 
the  management  of  extensive  commercial  enterprises, 
earnest  participation  in  the  promotion  of  good  mor- 


32  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

als  and  religion,  the  discharge  with  rare  fidelity  and 
general  acceptance  of  the  duties  of  the  administra- 
tion of  a  great  city,  combined  with  a  calm  judgment 
free  from  bias,  have  shown  you  possessed  of  very 
many,  if  not  all,  of  the  essential  qualities  of  a  suc- 
cessful executive  officer.  We  therefore  look  to  you 
with  confident  reliance  on  your  impartial  treatment 
of  the  important  questions  that  will,  in  the  near  future, 
present  themselves  for  your  advice  and  co-operation. 
The  members  of  the  several  Faculties,  as  well  as  the 
educated  public,  will  expect  of  you,  while  maintaining 
the  long-tried  and  approved  disciplinary  studies  that 
form  the  basis  of  the  College  course,  in  conjunction 
with  the  Trustees  also  to  have  ever  in  view  the  due, 
deliberate,  and  systematic  development  of  new  de- 
partments of  study  to  meet  the  ever  increasing  and 
diverging  demands  of  modern  life.  Out  of  the  old 
College  have  grown  already  a  well-established  and 
highly  successful  School  of  Law,  and  School  of  Mines  ; 
of  later  growth,  but  of  increasing  importance  and  wide 
usefulness,  has  followed  a  School  of  Political  Science  ; 
other  schools  and  departments  of  study  are  taking 
shape  and  only  waiting  the  fitting  moment  to  spring, 
like  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jupiter,  ready  armed 
and  equipped  for  active  service.  These  matters  be- 
long in  their  authorization  to  the  Trustees  and  the 
President,  to  us  in  their  development  and  applica- 
tion. In  this  development  and  application,  it  will  be 
our  pleasure  as  well  as  our  duty  to  render  you  all  aid 
and  encouragement  in  our  several  relations.  You 
will  find  each  Faculty,  and  every  member  of  each 
Faculty,  ready  and  eager  to  aid  in  building  up  an  in- 
stitution such  as  may  be  an  honor  to  the  great  city 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  FACULTIES.  33 

in  which  is  its  home  and  where  must  be  its  sphere  of 
usefulness.  More  personal  than  the  relation  of  coun- 
sellors will  be  the  associations  in  friendly  and  social 
intercourse.  In  the  smaller  cities  and  towns,  the 
University  or  College  gives  the  tone  to  society,  and 
its  celebrations  are  the  great  events  of  each  recurring 
season.  In  our  great  commercial  city,  the  College 
influence  is  too  slightly  felt.  We  look  to  you  to 
bring  the  College  into  closer  relations  with  the  life 
of  this  community.  Already  many  learned  societies 
cluster  around  it,  and  find  hospitable  accommodation 
within  its  walls.  The  liberal  and  thoughtful  action 
of  our  Trustees  provides  each  year  for  the  benefit 
and  instruction  of  the  general  public,  who  cannot 
avail  themselves  of  its  more  serious  studies,  lectures 
on  topics  of  literature,  science,  and  philosophy.  As 
the  administrator  of  this  liberality,  you  will  have  the 
opportunity  and  the  power  to  extend  the  influence 
and  usefulness  of  the  College  throughout  the  com- 
munity in  ever  widening  circles. 

To  you,  Mr.  President,  who  now  enter  upon  your 
duties  with  the  full  confidence  of  the  Trustees,  with 
the  loyal  support  of  all  the  Faculties  of  the  College, 
and  with  the  enthusiastic  approval  of  the  Alumni,  in 
the  name  of  my  colleagues  and  as  their  representa- 
tive, and  for  myself  personally,  I  renew  the  words  of 
welcome,  and  wish  for  you  a  long,  honorable,  and 
successful  administration. 


ADDRESS    ON   BEHALF  OF   ALL  THE    ALUMNI 

BY 

FREDERIC  R.  COUDERT,  LL.D. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  come  the  Alumni  to  add 
their  greeting,  to  testify  their  joy,  and — to  tender 
their  counsel.  This  last  and  most  important  function 
they  could  not  well  omit,  lest  they  fail  in  their  duty  to 
you  and  especially  to  themselves.  For  we  are  not 
unmindful  that  it  has  always  been  the  pride  of  a  good 
judge  to  amplify  his  own  jurisdiction,  and  the  lauda- 
ble effort  of  every  body  of  men  to  assert  their  power 
and  extend  their  authority.  Whatever  else  we  fail  in 
to-day,  we  shall  not  be  remiss  or  hesitating,  when  we 
advance  the  claims  of  the  Alumni,  to  impress  upon 
you  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  value  of  their 
counsel  and  the  necessity  of  their  existence. 

The  Alumni  of  Columbia  stand,  in  relation  to  the 
governing  powers,  much  as  the  Third  Estate  of 
France  did  to  the  other  two,  viz.,  the  Clergy  and 
the  Nobility ;  both  these  orders  being  with  us  largely 
and  well  represented  by  the  Trustees  and  the  Faculty, 
in  whose  ranks  may  be  found  worthy  members  of  the 
sacred  profession,  quite  competent  by  their  merit  to 
leaven  even  a  larger  mass  of  laymen.  The  direction 
of  Columbia's  policy,  the  administration  of  her 
finances,  a  wise  and  patient  concern  for  her  moral 

34 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF   THE  ALUMNI.  35 

welfare,  the  judicious  appropriation  of  whatever  may 
be  useful  in  the  new  devices  that  agitate  our  educa- 
tional world — all  these  things  have  been  committed 
to  and  dealt  with  by  our  two  estates.  As  to  this,  our 
Third  Estate,  a  prudent  disinclination  to  indulge  in 
boldness  of  speech  prevents  my  claiming  what  was 
claimed  for  that  subdivision  of  the  French  nation. 
"  What  is  the  Third  Estate  ?"  once  cried  a  member  of 
that  body  ;  "  Nothing  !  What  ought  it  to  be  ?  Every 
thing  !  "  Without  venturing  in  this  presence  to  echo 
the  sentiment,  even  while  quoting  the  language  of 
this  outspoken  patriot,  I  may  be  pardoned  when  I 
look  about  me  with  exultation  and  find  strong 
grounds  for  indulgence  in  something  much  akin  to 
glorification.  You,  sir,  are  one  of  Columbia's  hon- 
ored and  favorite  children — an  Alumnus  who  always 
took  a  just  pride  in  the  title.  The  learned  Professor 
who  has  just  addressed  us,  and  who  has  given  us  the 
best  years  of  his  useful  life,  belongs  to  Columbia's 
household  and  family.  In  our  Board  of  Trustees  the 
intelligence  and  care  and  wisdom  of  Columbia's  chil- 
dren are  predominant  and  most  precious  factors. 
Never  before,  I  think,  in  her  history  has  Columbia 
been  so  thoroughly  herself  as  she  is  to-day.  She  may 
proudly  defy  all  laws,  wise  or  unwise,  which  embarrass 
the  introduction  of  learning  from  abroad  and  prohibit 
the  importation  of  foreign  intellect  by  contract. 
Other  institutions  may  suffer,  but  she,  with  her 
Alumni,  is  self-supporting — in  that  sense  at  least. 
Nor  can  it  with  truth  be  said  that  the  accident  of 
personal  distinction  accounts  for  the  presence  of  our 
Alumni  in  these  high  places.  We  need  no  argument 
based  upon  exceptions  to  prove  that  Columbia  has  at 


36  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

her  back  more  than  Ulysses  or  any  dozen  heroes — a 
compact,  loyal,  affectionate  body  of  intelligent  and 
self-respecting  men  to  honor  and  to  serve  her.  That 
she  has  these,  and  that  they  stand  high  on  the  roll  of 
our  city's  and  our  country's  most  faithful  servants,  no 
man  knows,  sir,  better  than  yourself.  And  these  all 
stand  by  your  side,  loyal  friends  to  applaud  and 
rejoice  when  you  shall  have  won  great  honor  for 
yourself  by  doing  full  justice  to  her. 

But  lest  my  language  should  create  a  wrong  im- 
pression, let  me  add  that  the  great  distinction  which 
Columbia  has  bestowed  upon  you  is  not  the  result  of 
any  narrow  pride  in  her  own  children.  You  have 
been  selected  for  the  highest  honor  within  her  gift 
because  of  her  full  confidence  in  your  capacity  to  do 
all  that  she  expects  from  you.  In  proportion  to  the 
value  of  the  gift  shall  be  the  return  demanded  ;  she 
will  exact  full  measure,  to  overflowing ;  she  will  ex- 
pect all  that  your  record  teaches  that  she  may 
demand :  that  your  brain  shall  work  and  your  heart 
shall  beat  for  her  and  her  glory,  that  you  will  respond 
to  the  inspiration  of  your  surroundings,  to  the  tra- 
ditions that  will  follow  you  at  every  step,  to  the 
eloquent  admonitions  of  those  who  have  gone  before, 
and  especially,  as  you  take  the  seat  so  honorably 
filled  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  that  you  will  resolve 
with  generous  ardor  to  follow  him  who  filled  it  before 
you,  not  "with  long  interval  and  unequal  steps,"  but 
with  such  earnestness  of  pursuit  that  the  end  of  his 
career  will  prove  to  be  but  the  beginning  of  a  new 
one,  destined,  let  us  all  hope,  with  the  blessing  of 
Providence,  to  be  as  long  and  as  honored  and  as 
splendid  in  its  results  as  his  own.  Else  were  the 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF   THE  ALUMNI.  37 

promise  of  fruition  from  his  great  service  to  be 
broken  before  maturity.  The  past  is  not  secure 
unless  adopted,  continued,  and  excelled  by  the  future. 
That  you  are  one  of  us  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word  adds  much  to  our  confidence.  That  Columbia 
has  found  a  fitting  successor  for  her  great  leader 
without  crossing  the  boundaries  of  her  own  jurisdic- 
tion is  a  fact  not  without  its  bearing  on  the  problems 
that  she  will  have  to  deal  with  and  to  solve.  These 
problems  may  seem  many  and  arduous,  but  they  will 
be  shorn  of  their  terror  if  you  succeed  in  satisfying 
the  citizen  of  New  York  that  he  is  bound  to  Columbia 
by  ties  that  he  has  no  right  to  ignore  and  no  power 
to  break.  Teach  him,  we  pray  you,  that  if  there  is 
any  subject  upon  which  he  may  well  indulge  in  civic 
pride,  it  is  the  College  that  has  worked  so  modestly 
and  yet  efficiently  to  train  the  men  about  him  for 
every  duty  of  life.  Tell  him,  and  impress  upon  him, 
if  you  may,  that  the  glamour  of  distance,  while  it 
lights  up  with  artistic  beauty  objects  in  the  physical 
world,  and  conceals  defects  by  suppressing  them, 
does  not  add  to  the  beauty  of  institutions  whose 
excellence  belongs  to  the  moral  order.  Warn  him 
against  the  delusive  charms  of  a  lovely  mirage, 
against  the  fallacy  which  clothes  the  unknown  with 
splendor,  while  the  virtues  of  that  which  we  possess 
become  dwarfed  by  proximity  and  possession.  It  is 
not  strange,  perhaps,  that  our  men  of  New  York 
should  seek  far  from  home  for  that  which  they  may 
find  at  hand.  That  is  the  story  of  every  day  and  of 
every  age.  It  is  the  key  of  much  that  would  other- 
wise be  unintelligible.  Why  do  men  change  their 
sky  when  they  cannot  change  their  mind  or  heart  ? 


38  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

why  do  they,  which  is  much  more  to  our  purpose, 
forget  that  Columbia  is  at  their  door,  and  yet  fill  the 
halls  of  other  colleges  with  their  sons — colleges  great 
and  good,  no  doubt,  but  possessing,  we  venture  to 
think,  no  real  claim  to  preference  over  your  own 
Alma  Mater.  We  at  least  may  be  pardoned  for 
thinking  that  no  paramount  title  exists  in  their 
favor ;  none,  perhaps,  other  than  that  which  a  glow- 
ing fancy  paints,  which  Rumor,  growing  with  dis- 
tance, boldly  asserts,  and  which  rests  upon  no  securer 
foundation  than  the  strange  belief  that  the  disruption 
of  family  ties  is  the  first  step  to  intellectual  advance- 
ment. If  you  are  at  a  loss  how  to  impress  upon  the 
citizen  of  New  York  these  teachings  and  warnings, 
turn  to  your  old  Horace,  the  universal  medicine  man 
in  whose  pharmacopoeia  you  will  find  a  remedy  for 
every  ill  that  may  be  cured  by  common-sense  and 
sound  philosophy  ;  tell  our  citizens  what  he  says  to 
his  friend  Bullatius,  the  wanderer.  He  had  visited 
Chios  and  Samos  and  Lesbos  and  lovely  Mitylene, 
and  yet  the  poet  laughs  at  him  for  his  pains,  and 
chides  him  for  his  restlessness  :  "What  you  seek  is 
here,  here  at  home,  within  your  reach  ;  quod  petis,  hie 
cst  .  .  .  animus  si  te  non  deficit  <zquus"  that  is, 
if  you  have  any  judgment  worth  speaking  of.  Should 
they  stubbornly  refuse  to  listen  to  Horace,  they  are 
indeed  far  gone,  and  I  must  leave  you  to  such  devices 
as  your  experience  of  men,  acquired  in  practical 
statesmanship,  may  suggest. 

Let  me  congratulate  you  upon  the  auspicious  time 
which  marks  the  beginning  of  your  career  as  Colum- 
bia's President.  The  days  of  doubt  and  anxiety  are 
past ;  success  has  ceased  to  be  a  question.  In  friendly 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  ALUMNI.  39 

rivalry  for  the  front  rank  with  her  brilliant  sisters,  she 
occupies  by  common  consent  a  most  honorable  place. 
She  feels  that  with  them  she  may  share  the  great 
privilege  of  preparing  the  generations  of  the  future  to 
discharge  all  the  duties  of  the  citizen  ;  that  she  is 
doing  and  will  do  her  part  towards  preserving  the 
Republic.  Upon  the  graduates  of  Columbia  and 
Harvard  and  Yale  and  Princeton  and  others  the  suc- 
cess of  our  phenomenal  experiment  of  governing  our- 
selves must  largely  depend.  General  education,  the 
most  potent  agent  in  our  civilization,  has  removed  old 
difficulties,  but  created  new  ones  by  enlarging  the 
boundaries  of  our  mental  activities  and  opening  new 
territories  for  the  pioneers  in  the  scientific  and  politi- 
cal world.  There  must  be  among  us  men  who  have 
the  leisure  to  study,  the  brain  to  acquire,  the  oppor- 
tunity to  advance ;  who  have  the  will,  the  ability,  the 
learning,  the  equipoise  that  make  the  leaders,  and 
they  will  be  found  to  a  great  extent  among  college 
graduates.  The  delusion  is  disappearing  that  the 
science  of  government  may  be  acquired  by  con- 
tagion ;  the  folly  of  trusting  men  upon  their  own 
statement  of  their  own  value  has  been  ascertained  by 
experience.  Political  science  is  not  to  be  learned  in 
a  tavern  and  the  experience  of  the  past  may  not  be 
disregarded  without  peril. 

Even  the  superstition  that  a  knowledge  of  letters 
is  inconsistent  with  a  proper  performance  of  public 
duties,  or  that  it  constitutes  an  impediment  to  serious 
business,  has  already  reached  its  highest  point  and  is 
in  a  condition  of  decline. 

Nor  will  you  fail  to  rejoice  in  the  good-fortune 
which  enables  you  to  broaden  the  usefulness  of  Co- 


40  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

lumbia.  An  auspicious  day  has  dawned  upon  our 
city,  since  woman  may  claim,  if  she  will,  equal  oppor- 
tunity with  man  to  drink  at  the  fountain  of  knowledge, 
and  to  fit  herself  by  study  and  preparation  for  the  en- 
joyment of  those  literary  and  scientific  pursuits  which 
constitute  the  surest,  safest,  and  most  constant  of  all 
the  charms  of  refined  life.  In  spite  of  History,  which 
proclaims  on  so  many  of  its  pages  her  ability  to  in- 
struct and  delight  the  world,  the  indifference  or 
selfishness  of  man  had  closed  the  doors  of  the  Temple 
of  Learning  against  her.  Let  Barnard  College  under 
your  wise  guidance  stand  henceforth  as  a  protest 
against  narrow  intolerance,  as  a  demonstration  of 
woman's  fitness  for  all  that  is  good,  and  as  a  living 
proof  that  Columbia  has  turned  her  face  to  the  light 
and  thrown  off  the  impedimenta  of  senseless  prejudice. 
But  I  must  stop — lest  you  do,  what  perhaps  you 
have  already  done  in  your  mind — namely,  resort  to 
Horace  for  consolation.  I  can  give  you  the  appropri- 
ate quotation,  the  one  that  you  will  find  most  apt  ;  it 
is  the  witch's  prophecy  that  he  heard  when  a  boy : 
"  This  child  neither  shall  cruel  poison,  nor  hostile 
sword,  nor  gout,  nor  pleurisy,  nor  cough  destroy ;  a 
talker  shall  one  day  demolish  him  ;  if  he  is  wise  let 
him  avoid  talkative  men  as  soon  as  he  comes  to  man's 
estate." 

Hunc  neque  dira  venena,  nee  hostis  auferet  ensis, 
Nee  laterum  dolor,  aut  tussis,  nee  tar  da  podagra  ; 
Garrulus  nunc  quando  eonsumet  eunque  ;  loquaces, 
Si  sapiet,  vitet  simul  atque  adoleverit  cetas. 

Your  life  is  too  precious,  sir,  to  be  imperilled  by 
farther  speech.  I  forbear,  and  close  with  a  renewed 
pledge  of  cordial  and  affectionate  suppport  from  your 
brethren  the  Alumni. 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  ALL  THE  STUDENTS 

PRESENTED,  BY   PERMISSION,  THROUGH   THE  CHAIRMAN    OF    THEIR 

COMMITTEE. 

To  the  Hon.  Seth  Low,  LL.D.,  President  of  Columbia 
College  : 

The  students  of  Columbia  College,  in  all  its  Schools 
and  Departments,  unite  in  welcoming  you  as  their 
President.  Your  name  has  long  been  honored  and 
beloved  in  the  halls  of  the  University  over  which  you 
have  now  been  called  to  preside.  For  nearly  a  score 
of  years  Columbia  students  have  found  in  your  ex- 
ample an  inspiration,  and  in  the  record  of  your  life  a 
motive  to  earnest,  unselfish,  and  enthusiastic  endeavor. 

The  loyal  and  steady  devotion  which  you  have 
manifested  toward  your  Alma  Mater,  both  in  the 
Association  of  the  Alumni  and  on  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees, has  endeared  you  to  the  hearts  of  all  Columbia 
men,  and  claims  from  us,  as  children  of  the  same 
mother,  that  gratitude  and  respect  the  expression  of 
which  we  now  desire  to  convey  to  you. 

Your  administration  as  Mayor  of  Brooklyn  estab- 
lishes in  us  the  confidence  that  your  government  here 
will  be  marked  by  wisdom,  fairness,  and  progress. 
We  take  additional  pleasure  in  the  belief  that  the 
comparatively  early  age  at  which  you  have  been 
called  to  this  place  of  executive  government,  and 
your  intimate  identification  with  the  varied  interests 

41 


42  INSTALLATION   OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

of  college  life,  will  cause  us  to  find  in  you  one  who 
sympathizes  fully  with  the  thought  and  action  of  the 
undergraduate. 

Columbia's  history  is  one  of  which  we  may  well  be 
proud.  Her  influence  in  the  development  of  our  civic 
and  national  life  has  been  marked.  We  rejoice  in 
the  fame  and  honor  won  by  her  Alumni,  and  in  the 
power  which,  through  them,  she  wields  in  the  com- 
munity. Among  the  students  of  the  present  time, 
college  spirit  is  more  intense  than  ever  before.  Ac- 
companied, as  this  is,  by  a  hearty  unanimity  in  all 
efforts  to  advance  Columbia's  standards,  it  argues 
well  for  the  rapid  advancement  and  development  of 
the  College  in  the  near  future. 

The  true  glory  of  a  college  consists  not  in  the  ex- 
tent of  its  domain,  nor  yet  in  the  beauty  of  its  walls, 
but  rather  in  the  worth  and  character  of  its  men  ; 
and  in  the  lives  trained  here  for  useful  work  and  ser- 
vice your  administration  will  find  its  highest  reward. 
In  all  your  efforts  for  the  welfare  and  upbuilding  of 
the  College  we  ask  you  to  rely  upon  the  heartfelt  and 
unswerving  loyalty  of  the  whole  student  body. 

Respectfully, 
Thornton  Bancroft  Penfield,  '90,  School  of  Arts, 

Chairman. 
Samuel  Wakeman  Andrews,  Jr.,  '90,  School  of  Mines, 

Secretary. 

Victor  Mapes,  '91,  School  of  Arts. 
Rolla  Barnum  Watson,  '91,  School  of  Mines. 
Francis  Herbert  Brownell,  '91,  School  of  Law. 
Charles  White  Trippe,  '92,  School  of  Arts. 
Dudley  Arthur  Van  Ingen,  '92,  School  of  Mines. 
Arthur  Outram  Sherman,  '92,  School  of  Law. 
Will  Whyland,  '93,  School  of  Arts. 
Richard  Bayley  Post,  Jr.,  '93,  School  of  Mines. 

Committee. 


PRESIDENT  LOWS  REPLY  TO  THE  FACULTIES, 
THE  ALUMNI,  AND  THE  STUDENTS. 

Gentlemen  of  the   Faculties   and   Gentlemen  of  the 
Alumni  : 

I  thank  you  for  your  cordial  welcome  to  me  as  the 
President  of  Columbia.  If  the  Trustees  furnish  the 
sinews  for  our  work  and  give  a  general  direction  to 
it,  the  Faculties  in  reality  make  the  College,  and  the 
Alumni  certify  to  its  value.  In  the  best  view,  I  think, 
we  all  belong  to  the  Alumni  rather  than  they  to  us.  I 
esteem  it  one  of  the  fortunate  incidents  connected 
with  my  Presidency,  that  I  am  assured  in  advance  of 
their  hearty  support.  In  replying  to  the  Faculties,  I 
must  needs  say,  sir,  if  you  will  allow  me,  first  of  all,  a 
few  words  to  yourself,  who  have  spoken  on  their 
behalf.  The  friendship  which  began  between  us  in 
our  old  relation  of  professor  and  student  most  happily 
has  been  an  unbroken  one.  As  I  sat  at  your  feet  in 
college,  so  I  have  not  ceased  to  learn  from  you  those 
finer  lessons  which  are  taught  by  an  upright  and 
noble  character.  For  more  than  forty  years  you  have 
served  Columbia  faithfully  and  well.  I  like  to  think 
that  in  a  certain  sense  I  receive  the  Presidency  at 
your  hands.  It  comes  to  me  largely,  as  I  feel  it,  the 
gracious  gift  from  age  to  youth,  bearing  with  it  for 
this  reason  a  precious  benediction  and  a  large  inspira- 
tion. The  Faculties  will  appreciate,  that  as  to  the 

43 


44  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

technical  side  of  their  work  I  must  be  for  a  long  time 
a  learner.  I  do  indeed  bring  to  your  councils  two 
new  and  different  points  of  view,  both  of  which  may 
be  valuable  in  the  work  we  shall  have  to  do  together. 
I  shall  bring  into  your  meetings  the  experience  of  a 
man  of  affairs  and  the  point  of  view  of  the  Trustees. 
I  appreciate  thoroughly  the  importance  of  the  ques- 
tions that  are  awaiting  the  new  order  of  things  for 
determination.  To  these  questions  I  can  bring  no 
better  equipment  than  an  open  mind.  I  rely  upon 
your  patience  and  forbearance  with  me  if  matters 
which  to  you  appear  plain  and  simple  on  my  part 
demand  study  and  thought.  I  can  promise  you  my 
most  earnest  efforts  to  acquaint  myself  promptly  with 
the  condition  and  needs  of  the  College  in  all  its 
parts.  You  will  not  expect  me  to-day  to  outline  a 
policy.  Were  I  to  have  a  policy,  under  existing  con- 
ditions, it  would  seem  an  evidence  of  unfitness  for  my 
post.  Two  points  appear  to  me  essential  to  the 
securing  of  the  best  results.  We  must  conceive  of 
the  College  as  a  single  institution.  In  my  view  its 
various  schools  are  as  much  integral  parts  of  the 
College  as  the  undergraduate  department  itself.  This 
is  fundamental,  because,  unless  we  have  this  view,  it 
is  impossible  to  make  the  different  parts  work  to- 
gether to  the  best  advantage  toward  common  ends. 
This  suggestion  is  entirely  consistent,  in  my  mind, 
with  a  belief  that  the  School  of  Arts,  the  historic 
side  of  the  College,  is  the  foundation  of  the  whole.  I 
believe  in  doing  better  than  ever,  if  we  can,  the  work 
that  the  College  has  been  doing  from  the  beginning. 
But  I  see  no  reason  why  this  work  should  not  be  so 
done  as  to  co-operate  with  the  different  schools  in  the 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  REPLY  TO  THE  FACULTIES,  ETC.   45 

work  which  they  propose  to  do.  Whatever  can  be 
made  to  grow  out  of  the  old  root  I  should  expect  to 
be  strong  and  sound.  But  I  do  not  believe  in  de- 
stroying the  old  foundation  in  order  to  rest  a  new 
structure  upon  an  uncertain  base.  While  I  say  this 
I  am  in  entire  sympathy  with  the  desire  to  see  the 
College  continue  its  development  into  a  complete 
University  adapted  to  the  largest  possible  service  to 
American  needs.  I  hold  myself  open  to  conviction 
as  to  all  details.  I  indicate  simply  what  seems  to  me 
a  fundamental  condition  of  the  problem.  The  other 
point  which  to  my  mind  appears  of  vital  consequence 
is  a  frank  recognition  of  the  fact  that  all  parts  of  the 
work  which  the  College  has  to  do  are  honorable  and 
worthy  of  our  best  service.  Some  men  have  the  gift 
of  leading  students  in  research.  Others  have  the  gift 
of  instruction,  which  is  needed  in  the  disciplinary 
work.  It  will  be  fatal  to  the  best  results  if  all  the 
members  of  our  Faculties  wish  to  do  either  one  rather 
than  the  other.  Let  us  dispose  our  forces  in  such  a 
way  that  each  man  shall  have  that  kind  of  work  to  do 
which  he  is  fitted  for,  and  let  each  regard  the  other  as 
employed  in  an  equally  honorable  way  as  himself. 

I  hope  every  man  in  the  Faculties  looks  upon  his 
own  department  as  the  most  important  one  in  the 
College.  Of  course  the  President  may  not  hold  this 
view.  His  duty  is  specially  to  observe  and  maintain 
the  proportion  of  things.  I  cannot  therefore  promise 
to  each  of  you  that  every  thing  which  you  wish  will 
command  my  support ;  but  this  I  can  promise  to  each 
and  every  one  of  you  :  that,  in  your  efforts  to  make 
your  own  department  conform  to  your  highest  ideal, 
you  shall  have  my  sympathy  completely.  You  will 


46  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

never  feel,  I  trust,  that  you  can  trouble  me  by  calling 
my  attention  to  any  matter  which  seems  to  you  of 
consequence  to  the  College.  With  your  permission, 
I  shall  call  on  each  of  you  in  the  same  spirit.  Acting 
thus  together,  we  may  reasonably  anticipate,  I  think, 
a  happy  outcome  of  our  labors.  The  Alumni  of  the 
College  are  those  to  whom  we  look  specially  for  sup- 
port in  the  community.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  col- 
lege to  have  large  endowments.  It  must  have  living 
friends.  The  gifts  of  the  past  exhaust  themselves. 
The  bounties  of  the  present  should  run  in  a  perpetual 
stream.  For  the  last  few  years  the  Trustees  have 
sent  to  every  Alumnus  whose  address  was  known  an 
abstract  of  the  President's  report  and  a  copy  of  the 
Treasurer's  statement.  It  shall  not  be  my  fault  if  the 
Alumni  in  the  future  are  not  kept  well  informed  as  to 
the  plans  and  hopes  and  doings  of  Alma  Mater. 
They  can  bring  to  our  aid,  if  they  will,  invaluable 
suggestions  from  their  vantage-ground  of  experience. 
As  there  are  none  who  have  greater  pride  in  the 
College,  so  there  are  none  to  whom  the  College 
should  be  able  to  turn  with  greater  assurance  of  help. 
Columbia  College,  in  my  view,  has  an  unequalled  op- 
portunity by  reason  of  its  position  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  Its  position  here  confronts  it  also  with  its  special 
difficulties.  The  city  is  a  great  city,  and  it  is  not  easy 
for  any  institution  to  make  itself  powerfully  felt  in  so 
large  a  community.  Nevertheless,  gentlemen  of  the 
Alumni,  that  is  precisely  what  we  have  to  do.  Much 
will  depend,  no  doubt,  on  the  attitude  of  the  Trustees 
and  the  administration  of  the  College.  But  both  will 
fail  unless  the  Alumni,  entering  into  the  life  of  the 
community  as  they  do  in  a  thousand  ways,  are  thought- 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  REPLY  TO  THE  FACULTIES,  ETC.    47 

ful  for  the  good  name  of  the  College  at  all  times.  As 
has  been  said,  it  is  forty  years  since  an  Alumnus  of 
the  College  occupied  the  President's  office.  I  am 
glad  to  believe  that,  in  turning  to  my  fellow-Alumni 
for  counsel  and  support,  I  shall  receive  a  glad  and 
hearty  response.  I  rejoice  with  you,  sir,  that  in  Bar- 
nard College  Columbia  has  found  a  way  in  which  she 
can  with  heartiness  co-operate  in  advancing  the  higher 
education  of  women.  Barnard  College  is  governed, 
as  you  know,  by  its  own  trustees,  and  it  is  wholly 
dependent  on  the  community  for  its  support.  But 
Columbia  does  undertake  to  shape  its  curriculum,  to 
see  that  its  standards  are  maintained,  and  to  give  to 
its  graduates  the  recognition  of  a  Columbia  degree. 
For  its  name's  sake  and  for  its  work's  sake  Barnard 
College  may  rest  assured  of  my  hearty  and  willing 
help.  Gentleman  of  the  Faculties  and  gentlemen  of 
the  Alumni,  I  thank  you  again  for  your  warm  welcome. 
Students  of  Columbia,  I  thank  you  for  the  warm 
welcome  you  have  extended  to  me  as  the  President 
of  the  College.  No  incident  of  the  day  is  more  grati- 
fying to  me.  I  hope  you  will  find  me  in  sympathy 
with  you  in  every  matter  which  relates  to  your  happi- 
ness as  well  as  to  your  intellectual  progress.  Nothing 
which  concerns  you  shall  be  foreign  to  me.  I  pledge 
you  my  best  efforts  to  do  every  thing  in  my  power  to 
make  your  student  days  a  bright  and  happy  chapter 
in  your  lives.  Again  I  thank  you  for  your  hearty 
welcome. 


PRESIDENT   LOW'S   INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

Mr.   Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  Students  of 
Columbia  : 

In  this  majestic  and  historic  city  we  are  met  to- 
gether at  the  call  of  Columbia  College.  No  institu- 
tion in  New  York  intertwines  itself  more  closely  with 
the  city's  history  and  the  city's  glory.  George  II. 
was  still  alive  when,  in  1754,  the  College  had  its 
beginnings  in  a  New  York  numbering  about  thirteen 
thousand  souls,  of  whom  more  than  two  thousand 
were  held  as  slaves.  The  city  and  the  College  have 
grown  together,  until  the  College  to-day,  with  its 
various  schools,  is  among  the  foremost  in  the  land. 
In  the  Revolutionary  period  the  College,  as  repre- 
sented by  its  students  and  its  graduates,  was  instinct 
with  patriotism.  Its  name,  Columbia,  given  to  it  to 
take  the  place  of  King's  College,  is  not  an  accident. 
It  was  the  natural  selection  for  the  Alma  Mater  of 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  John  Jay.  Yet  these  men, 
if  most  conspicuous,  were  not  singular  among  their 
college  friends  in  their  attachment  to  the  American 
cause.  The  students  of  the  College,  like  college  stu- 
dents everywhere,  had  imbibed  the  spirit  of  liberty  in 
the  free  air  which  men  must  breathe  who  follow  after 
truth.  All  men  know  what  services  Hamilton  ren- 
dered to  the  little  republic  which  started  on  its 
marvellous  career  in  this  city  a  century  ago.  What 

48 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  49 

fitter  gift  could  Columbia  have  made  to  New  York,  or 
New  York  to  the  nation,  than  the  unequalled  Minister 
of  Finance  whom  Washington  appointed  the  first 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ?  As  beneath  the  touch  of 
Midas  all  things  turned  into  gold,  so  beneath  the 
skilful  touch  of  Hamilton  the  nation  converted  into 
power  resources  which  had  been  valueless.  But  the 
great  minister  did  more  than  that.  He  made  good 
the  credit  of  the  nation,  and  the  great  republic's 
credit  has  stood  unshaken  since,  not  so  much  because 
of  our  fabulous  resources  as  because  the  high  standard 
of  good  faith  of  which  Hamilton  set  the  example  has 
been  uniformly  maintained. 

To-morrow,  in  this  historic  city  in  which  the  gov- 
ernment began,  there  is  to  be  celebrated  the  centen- 
nial of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  To 
this  great  court,  of  which  all  Americans  are  proud, 
Columbia  College  gave  its  first  chief-justice  in  the 
person  of  John  Jay.  Columbia  College  is  worthily 
represented  in  the  same  court  to-day  in  the  person 
of  Mr.  Justice  Blatchford.  I  like  to  think  of  John 
Jay  that  he  set  the  standard  to  which,  in  point  of 
character,  all  Columbia  men  should  strive  to  attain. 
It  was  Daniel  Webster  who  said  of  him  :  "  When 
the  spotless  ermine  of  the  judicial  robe  fell  on  John 
Jay  it  touched  nothing  less  spotless  than  itself ! " 
So  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  first 
strong  impulse  toward  the  emancipation  of  slaves 
in  the  State  of  New  York  came  from  John  Jay.  The 
first  legislative  act  looking  to  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  this  State  was  passed  while  Jay  was  Governor,  at 
his  instance,  and  received  his  signature.  Thus  Co- 
lumbia's name  is  linked  forever  in  the  annals  of  the 


50  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

Empire  State  with  this  high  act  of  justice  and  of 
righteousness. 

At  this  time,  1795,  and  for  many  years  there- 
after, the  advantages  of  New  York  as  a  commercial 
centre  were  limited  to  her  incomparable  harbor 
and  to  her  unique  position  on  these  two  great 
waterways,  the  one  reaching  far  into  the  interior 
and  the  other  giving  her  a  second  line  of  communica- 
tion with  the  ocean  by  way  of  an  inland  sea,  and 
both  bringing  deep  water  close  to  her  shores.  It  is 
interesting  to  read  that  so  late  as  1 769  it  was  consid- 
ered a  rash  prediction  that  New  York  might  one  day 
equal  Newport,  R.  I.,  as  a  commercial  city.  Before 
the  beginning  of  this  century  New  York  had  indeed 
stepped  into  the  first  place,  but  she  was  hard  pressed 
by  Philadelphia,  and  even  by  Baltimore.  It  was  a 
son  of  Columbia  College,  DeWitt  Clinton,  who  made 
New  York's  diadem  secure.  The  statesmanship  which 
opened  across  the  State  of  New  York  a  highway  to 
the  West,  a  highway  for  enterprise,  and  courage,  and 
commerce,  and  civilization,  and  Christianity,  the 
statesmanship  which  thus  made  largely  tributary  to 
this  city  the  abounding  plenteousness  of  that  illimita- 
ble region, — this  statesmanship  received  its  earliest 
development  in  Columbia's  halls.  Springing  naturally 
out  of  the  city's  maritime  advantages,  mightily  rein- 
forced as  these  were  by  Clinton's  great  work,  there 
grew  up  in  New  York  an  ocean  commerce  which 
drew  to  the  city  the  ships  of  all  the  world.  By  1 860 
a  large  proportion  of  this  commerce  was  carried  on 
in  American  bottoms.  The  New  York  and  Liver- 
pool liner  and  the  New  York  clipper  acknowledged 
no  superiors  on  the  broad  seas.  Then  came  the 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  51 

Civil  War,  and  these  stately  merchant  fleets  were 
decimated  by  Confederate  cruisers  fitted  out  in 
foreign  ports.  At  this  juncture  another  son  of  Co- 
lumbia College,  the  venerable  Hamilton  Fish,  for 
many  years,  and  happily  still,  the  revered  Chairman 
of  the  Trustees  of  the  College,  as  Secretary  of  State 
of  the  United  States,  negotiated  the  treaty  of  Wash- 
ington, under  which  were  adjudicated  without  an 
appeal  to  arms  our  righteous  claims  for  the  de- 
struction of  this  merchant  marine.  Again  I  ask,  what 
more  fitting  contribution  could  Columbia  have  made 
to  New  York  in  these  later  times,  or  New  York  to 
the  nation,  than  the  sturdy  statesman  whose  masterful 
diplomacy  brought  this  question  within  the  range  of 
peaceable  settlement  ?  For  the  first  time  in  history,  a 
dispute  so  formidable  between  two  nations  of  the  first 
rank  was  settled  without  a  war.  The  city  and  the 
College  together  produced  the  temper  which  met  the 
opportunity  and  the  need  with  such  brilliant  success. 
It  thus  appears  that  the  distinguished  services  of 
Columbia's  sons  have  covered  the  whole  period  of  the 
College  life. 

I  like  to  recall  how  frequently  these  services  have 
been  chacteristic  of  the  essential  life  of  the  city.  It 
is  largely  true  of  all  of  them  that  the  College  and  the 
city  have  combined  together  to  produce  the  fine 
result.  I  have  chosen  conspicuous  names,  but  they  are 
only  the  choice  sheaves  of  a  harvest  which  has  been 
perennial.  Consider  for  a  moment  the  significance 
to  the  College  of  the  great  city  about  it.  First  of  all, 
it  means  for  every  one  of  us  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  the  world  of  letters  apart  from  the  world  of 
men.  There  are  such  things,  undoubtedly,  as  most 


52  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

unworldly  scholars,  men  oftentimes  "  of  whom  the 
world  is  not  worthy,"  but  such  scholars  are  never 
made  except  out  of  men  who  see  humanity,  as  in  a 
vision,  ever  beckoning  to  them  from  behind  their 
books.  The  scholar  without  this  vision  is  a  pedant. 
He  mistakes  learning  for  an  end  in  itself,  instead  of 
seeing  that  it  is  only  a  weapon  in  a  wise  man's  hands. 
The  city  surrounds  us  all  with  a  large  and  bracing 
atmosphere.  Something  of  the  breadth  of  view  and 
feeling  which  travel  gives,  the  cosmopolitan  city  may 
bestow  upon  those  who  study  in  it.  Beware,  young 
men,  lest  by  its  size  and  wealth  and  power  it  make 
you  supercilious.  Rather,  by  the  spectacle  which  it 
displays  of  the  variety  of  peoples  and  their  varied 
gifts,  let  it  make  you  large  in  your  sympathies  and 
lofty  in  your  aspirations.  It  may  become  to  you,  if 
you  will  not  hinder  it,  a  liberal  education  in  itself.  I 
can  think  of  no  finer  supplement  to  the  liberal  culture 
which  the  College  aims  to  bestow  than  that  which  may 
come  from  mingling  in  a  fearless  fellowship  with  the 
many  kinds  of  men  to  be  met  with  in  New  York.  The 
simple  conditions  on  the  student's  part  are  a  recogni- 
tion of  inherent  worth,  wherever  it  may  be  found, 
and  an  open  mind.  The  ends  of  the  earth,  then,  will 
bring  to  you  their  contribution,  and  you  shall  come 
to  see  that  this  great  city  is  full  of  inspiration  to  a 
man  who  would  be  noble.  Think  what  it  may  do 
for  the  different  types  of  men  who  ought  to  be  found 
at  all  times  within  the  College  walls.  Here  is  your 
man  aiming  to  open  his  nature  on  every  side  into  the 
broadest  possible  touch  with  his  fellows.  The  study 
of  the  classics  may  do  much  for  such  a  man.  They 
give  him  the  companionship  of  the  great  minds  of 


THE   PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  53 

ancient  times,  and  help  him  to  realize  that  it  always 
has  been  a  glorious  thing  to  be  a  man.  They  help 
him  to  see  with  a  just  perspective  the  claims  of  the 
present,  and  they  illumine  with  a  fascinating  light  the 
literature  of  all  the  times  between  and  of  our  own  day. 
But  the  real  world  is  not  to  be  found  in  books.  That 
is  peopled  by  men  and  women  of  living  flesh  and 
blood,  and  the  great  city  can  supply  the  human  quality 
which  the  broad-minded  man  must  not  suffer  himself 
to  lack.  There  is  a  variety  to  life  in  this  city,  a 
vitality  about  it,  and,  withal,  a  sense  of  power,  which, 
to  my  thought,  are  of  inestimable  value  to  the  student 
whose  desire  it  is  to  become  a  well-rounded  man. 
For  the  young  man  who  is  seeking  a  professional  or 
technical  training  I  need  not  stop  to  point  out  the 
advantages  the  city  offers.  All  men  recognize  them. 
There  is  but  one  New  York  on  all  this  continent, 
and,  for  the  purposes  of  technical  and  professional 
training,  her  location  in  New  York  supplements  the 
work  of  Columbia  with  advantages  not  elsewhere  to 
be  had.  So,  also,  I  believe  the  great  city  will  lend 
itself  readily  to  the  encouragement  of  profound  re- 
search. As  there  is  no  solitude  like  that  of  a  crowd, 
so  there  is  no  inspiration  like  it.  And  we  may  yet 
see  the  great  thinkers  and  the  great  discoverers  of 
our  age  the  men  of  city  breeding  and  of  a  city  atmos- 
phere. A  great  man  is  apt  to  partake  strongly  of  the 
habit  of  his  times,  and  the  tendency  to-day  sets  so 
strongly  toward  cities  on  every  hand  that  I  do  not 
expect  to  see  great  learning  and  profound  scholarship 
exceptional  as  to  that  tendency.  The  city  also  may 
be  made,  to  a  considerable  extent,  a  part  of  the  uni- 
versity. All  about  us  lie  its  galleries,  its  museums, 


54  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

and  its  libraries.  Best  of  all,  here  are  its  men,  the 
most  eminent  in  their  calling  in  every  walk  of  life. 
Let  us  bring  these  men  in  every  possible  way  into 
vital  touch  with  our  work,  and  we  shall  see  a  uni- 
versity of  which  the  whole  country  shall  be  proud. 
We  Americans  are  accustomed  to  say  that  our  greatest 
problems  lie  in  the  cities.  These  problems  are  to  be 
found  in  New  York,  unquestionably,  in  their  gravest 
forms.  Is  this  fact  without  special  meaning  to  you, 
young  gentlemen,  who  are  now  getting  your  educa- 
tion in  New  York?  From  what  quarter  are  the 
trained  intellect  and  the  consecrated  purpose  to  come 
which  are  to  grapple  successfully  with  these  problems 
in  the  coming  time,  if  not  out  of  New  York  itself,  and 
out  of  the  schools  and  colleges  of  New  York  ?  I  have 
tried  to  make  you  see  that  the  conspicuous  gifts  which 
New  York  and  Columbia  have  made  to  the  nation 
have  been  singularly  characteristic  of  New  York's 
essential  life.  The  well-ordered  finances  of  the  coun- 
try ;  the  Erie  Canal,  which  did  so  much  to  develop 
New  York,  both  the  State  and  the  city,  and  which 
developed  in  far  larger  measure  the  great  West  ;  the 
peaceful  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims  ;  these  are 
contributions  to  the  national  happiness  and  greatness 
which  display,  in  a  singular  degree,  the  educational 
influence  of  the  city  upon  the  men  trained  in  its 
midst.  I  do  not  claim  for  the  city  that  it  has  every 
kind  of  advantage.  Different  locations,  from  an  edu- 
cational point  of  view,  have  each  their  advantages 
and  their  disadvantages.  But  I  do  claim  that  an  edu- 
cation in  New  York  is  likely  to  be  of  especial  value 
to  any  man  who  wishes  to  be  of  service  in  meeting 
the  great  problems  with  which  our  cities  confront  the 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  55 

country.  Such  an  one,  it  seems  to  me,  will  appre- 
ciate much  earlier  in  life  what  a  great  city's  problems 
are.  To  him  the  atmosphere  of  a  city  will  be  a 
familiar  thing,  and  he  will  know,  if  he  is  a  wise  man, 
that,  though  the  powers  of  evil  in  a  city  are  great,  the 
powers  of  good  are  greater. 

Victor  Hugo  once  said:  "God  suffers  not  the 
precious  fruits  of  sorrow  to  grow  upon  a  branch  too 
weak  to  bear  them."  In  the  same  way  great  tasks 
are  set  to  Hercules,  not  to  a  weakling,  and  the  great- 
ness of  New  York's  problems  is  the  truest  measure  of 
her  strength.  Some  men,  as  they  recognize  how  far 
short  the  city  falls  in  a  thousand  ways  of  what  it 
ought  to  be,  and  see  the  difficulties  attending  all 
efforts  at  improvement,  are  apt  to  say  :  "  It  is  no  use. 
Let  us  eat  and  drink,  and  after  us  comes  the  deluge." 
But  let  it  not  be  so  with  you.  No  more  spirit- 
stirring  call  ever  sounded  in  the  ears  of  a  generation 
of  young  men  than  comes  to  the  youth  of  New  York 
and  America  in  connection  with  the  problems  of  this 
mighty  city.  Splendid  beyond  imagination  in  what  it 
may  be  made  to  be,  it  grieves  our  pride  and  shocks 
our  love  so  frequently  in  what  it  is.  Columbia  may 
bring  to  you  all  the  learning  of  the  ages,  she  may 
surround  you  with  all  the  opportunities  and  privileges 
which  the  times  will  supply,  but  she  will  fail  of  her 
truest  and  best  work  if  she  does  not  send  you  forth 
into  the  community  earnest  and  patriotic  men.  I  do 
not  ask  you  to  be  old  before  your  time ;  but  I  do  ask 
you  to  acquire,  in  your  student  days,  a  sense  of  the 
seriousness  of  life  and  an  enthusiasm  for  noble  living, 
which  shall  never  desert  you.  All  this,  I  think,  the 
city  means  to  the  College. 


56  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

Let  us  consider  now  what  the  College  means  to 
the  city.  The  value  of  the  College  to  New  York 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  services  of  her  con- 
spicuous sons.  Her  chief  and  permanent  value  to 
the  city  lies  in  the  constant  witness  she  bears  to 
the  usefulness  and  the  nobility  of  the  intellectual 
life  and  in  the  work  she  is  always  doing  to  develop 
and  uplift  that  life.  Columbia  College,  college  and 
university  both,  as  she  really  is,  holds  aloft  this 
ideal  in  the  great  city  where  finance  and  commerce 
show  alike  their  good  and  their  bad  sides.  Her 
influence  makes  always  to  strengthen  the  things 
which  are  good.  In  her  financial  management  she 
illustrates  a  business  trust  faithfully  administered 
without  a  breach  for  one  hundred  and  thirty  years. 
On  her  educational  side  she  displays  the  splendid  use- 
fulness of  money  which  is  received,  not  to  be  hoarded, 
but  to  be  well  spent.  She  is  profoundly  conscious 
that  what  she  is  doing  is  but  the  earnest  of  what  she 
yet  may  do,  if  New  York  will  but  make  common 
cause  with  her,  and  enlarge  and  broaden  and  deepen 
her  work  on  every  side.  She  aims  to-day  to  turn  out 
three  different  types  of  men.  Her  historic  work,  that 
which  she  did  for  half  a  century  before  she  did  any 
thing  else,  she  is  still  doing.  She  aims  to  develop  the 
cultivated  man,  the  educated  gentleman ;  the  man 
who,  without  being  a  specialist  in  any  thing,  has  been 
educated  enough  in  all  directions  to  be  in  sympathy 
with  all  learning ;  the  man  who  knows  enough  about 
the  past  to  recognize  the  value  of  it  and  of  all  expe- 
rience, but  who  is  not  bound  down  by  the  past ;  the 
man  who  knows  enough  about  the  present  to  glory  in 
its  achievement  and  its  promise,  but  who  never  forgets 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  57 

what  it  means  of  indebtedness  to  those  who  have 
gone  before,  to  be  "  in  the  foremost  files  of  time."  In 
a  word,  she  aims  to  develop  the  thoughtful  and  well- 
informed  citizen,  and  to  fill  him  with  her  own  high 
aspirations  as  to  his  citizenship  and  his  life.  The 
splendid  products  of  this  work  adorn  the  history  of 
the  city  and  the  nation  from  the  beginning  of  our 
career.  We  want  to  do,  not  less  of  it,  but  more, 
according  as  we  have  opportunity. 

In  the  process  of  time  something  other  than  this, 
however,  was  seen  to  be  needed.  Columbia  came  to 
realize  in  due  order  that  the  times  demanded  profes- 
sional education  in  medicine,  in  law,  in  applied  science, 
in  the  science  of  economics  and  of  government.  Theol- 
ogy she  has  left,  for  valid  reasons,  to  other  institutions 
about  her.  The  broad  fields  in  which  men  of  differ- 
ing faiths  could  journey  in  friendly  company,  she  has 
assumed  for  her  own.  One  after  another,  as  her  means 
allowed,  she  has  taken  up  those  subjects  upon  which 
men  needed  special  training  in  order  to  be  useful,  and 
her  School  of  Medicine,  her  School  of  Law,  her  School 
of  Mines,  or  of  applied  science,  her  School  of  Political 
Science,  are  at  once  ornaments  to  this  great  metropo- 
lis, magnificent  a  city  as  it  is,  and  invaluable  contribu- 
tors to  the  professional  life  and  learning  of  the  land. 
Columbia  College  believes  that  even  for  this  tech- 
nical and  professional  work,  it  is  well  for  a  man  to  lay 
the  broad  foundation  of  a  general  culture,  but  she 
does  not  refuse  to  recognize  the  specializing  tenden- 
cies of  the  times,  and  to  permit  those  who  will  to 
obtain  the  one  without  the  other.  Nevertheless  she 
does  say  that,  if  a  man  can  spare  the  time,  he  is 
throwing  away  part  of  his  life  and  part  of  his  power 


58  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

in  the  years  to  come  if  he  does  not  submit  at  the 
beginning  to  the  disciplinary  training  which  cultivates 
the  mind  before  he  begins  to  plant  the  particular 
seed  which  he  wishes  especially  to  grow.  Columbia 
College  believes  that  the  specialist,  because  he  is  a 
specialist,  ought  first  of  all  to  be  a  broadly  developed 
man. 

Side  by  side  with  these  men  of  a  general  culture 
and  a  professional  training  Columbia  aims  to  con- 
tribute in  increasing  numbers  still  another  precious 
type  to  the  scholarship  and  citizenship  of  the  times. 
She  always  has  been  doing  something,  she  aims  to  do 
systematically  more  and  more  of  the  original  work 
which  belongs  especially  to  our  conception  of  a  uni- 
versity in  philosophy,  in  law,  in  science,  and  in  every 
branch  of  learning.  She  aims  to  develop  the  patient 
student  whose  controlling  desire  it  will  be  to  add 
something  to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge.  She 
aims  to  do  her  part  to  make  return  to  Europe,  for 
the  benefits  of  research  which  Europe  has  bestowed 
with  such  lavish  hand  upon  America.  She  looks 
assuredly  for  the  day  when  European  students  shall 
come  to  New  York  and  Columbia,  where  now  our 
American  youth  go  to  Oxford  and  Paris  and  Berlin. 
No  less  a  result  than  this,  will  satisfy  Columbia's  con- 
ception of  what  is  within  her  power,  if  New  York  will 
sustain  her  in  the  work  she  seeks  to  do. 

To  every  one  of  these  different  types  of  men,  in 
their  studies  and  throughout  their  whole  life,  the  Col- 
lege contributes  that  subtle  and  patriotic  inspiration 
which  comes  from  the  accumulated  glory  of  her  history 
from  the  beginning  until  now.  As  there  are  some 
things  which  cannot  be  had  without  money,  so  there 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.         59 

are  things  of  inestimable  value  which  cannot  be  had 
except  with  the  passage  of  time.  The  rich  endow- 
ment of  a  glorious  age,  that  is  a  precious  possession 
and  a  spur  to  glorious  deeds  which  only  time  can 
supply.  If  there  are  men  and  women  in  New  York, 
and  I  hope  there  are  many,  who  wish  to  give  to  the 
cause  of  sound  learning  in  this  city,  to  the  advance- 
ment of  science,  or  to  the  encouragement  of  research, 
I  commend  to  them  the  thought  that  whatever  is 
added  to  Columbia's  endowment  is  guaranteed  to  the 
object  for  which  it  may  be  given  by  a  property  already 
large,  yet  large  enough  to  cover  but  a  small  part  of 
the  work  that  lies  all  about  us  to  be  done  ;  that  such 
a  gift  tends  to  make  more  useful  an  educational 
plant  already  of  the  first  order ;  and,  above  all,  that 
it  acquires,  on  the  instant,  the  unique  inspiration  and 
power  of  Columbia's  historic  name.  Hamilton  and 
Livingston  and  Jay  and  Gouverneur  Morris  and 
DeWitt  Clinton  and  all  the  rest,  who  have  served, 
and  are  serving  well  their  day  and  generation,  breathe 
upon  it  a  benediction  and  add  to  it  a  subtle  but  a 
genuine  power.  The  New  York  of  the  past,  so  far  as 
endowment  is  concerned,  has  enabled  Columbia  to  do 
all  that  she  has  done,  all  that  she  is  doing.  She 
summons  to  her  aid  now  with  a  glad  confidence  the 
New  York  of  to-day.  She  recognizes  in  the  munifi- 
cent legacy  of  Stephen  Whitney  Phenix,  in  the  last 
great  kindness  to  her  of  her  great  and  devoted  Presi- 
dent, the  late  Dr.  Barnard,  in  making  the  College  his 
residuary  legatee,  in  the  welcome  gifts  of  F.  Augustus 
Schermerhorn,  of  Jesse  Seligman,  of  A.  A.  Low,  and 
of  Charles  F.  McKim,  the  happy  beginnings  of  a  ten- 
dency which  will  yet  make  Columbia  what  she  ought 
to  be,  beyond  all  controversy  the  university  of  the 


60  INSTALLATION  OF  PRESIDENT  LOW. 

land.  She  looks  to  you,  young  gentlemen,  and  to 
her  alumni,  to  add  to  her  fair  fame  ;  she  looks  to  the 
living  New  York  to  build  upon  the  foundations  so 
nobly  laid  by  the  past  ;  she  looks  to  her  faculties  to 
give  sound  instruction,  to  hold  fast  the  learning  that 
men  have  wrested  hitherto  from  experience  and  from 
study,  and  to  carry  the  ever  shifting  boundaries  of 
human  knowledge  forward  into  the  vast  unknown. 
This  is  the  work  she  is  doing  here  in  the  great  finan- 
cial and  commercial  city  of  the  western  world.  Some 
tendency  there  is  on  every  side  of  her  to  put  a  money 
value  upon  every  thing.  Where  wealth  is  seen  to  be 
so  powerful  it  cannot  but  be  that  many  shall  think 
that  it  is  all  powerful.  Against  this  mistaken  ten- 
dency the  College  is  now  a  silent  and  now  an  out- 
spoken witness.  Learning,  in  her  view,  resulting  in 
knowledge  on  the  one  hand,  and  involving  truthful- 
ness upon  the  other,  is  a  greater  benefactress  of  man- 
kind. Wealth  is  powerful,  certainly.  Beneficently 
used  it  may  be  made  to  bless  the  centuries.  Columbia 
seeks  its  aid  for  her  own  work.  But  the  work  of  the 
College  would  be  valueless  to-morrow,  if  even  the 
wealth  of  New  York  could  bribe  her  instructors  to 
teach  as  true  what  they  know  to  be  false.  Truthful- 
ness is  the  one  essential,  fundamental  quality  of  a 
teacher.  Without  it  he  may  not  be  a  teacher.  Yet 
it  is  not  the  only  quality.  The  teacher,  like  the 
scholar,  must  himself  be  teachable.  An  ever  height- 
ening sky  for  human  thought,  an  ever  widening 
horizon  for  human  knowledge,  an  absolute  truthful- 
ness in  the  expression  of  the  light  within,  these  are 
the  distinguishing  marks  of  a  great  university  ;  these 
are  the  aspirations  in  whose  strength  Columbia  girds 
herself  afresh  for  the  work  that  it  is  hers  to  do. 


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